3He MRI in healthy volunteers: preliminary correlation with smoking history and lung volumes

MRI with hyperpolarized helium-3 (3He) provides high-resolution imaging of ventilated airspaces. The first aim of this 3He-study was to compare observations of localized signal defects in healthy smokers and non-smokers. A second aim was to describe relationships between parameters of lung function, volume of inspired 3He and signal-to-noise ratio. With Ethics Committee approval and informed consent, 12 healthy volunteers (seven smokers and five non-smokers) were studied. Imaging was performed in a 1.5 T scanner using a two-dimensional FLASH sequence at 30V transmitter amplitude (TR/TE/α = 11 ms/4.2 ms/<10°). Known amounts of 3He were inhaled from a microprocessor-controlled delivery device…