Donnerstag, 25. November 2010

Artikel des Tages: Visualization of Inert Gas Wash-Out During High- Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation Using Fluorine-19 MRI

Der heutige Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Lungenbildgebung unter Anwendung von 19F als NMR-Sonde. Die Autoren sind Mitarbeiter des Uniklinikums Mainz bzw. der Universität Mainz.

Aus dem Abstract:
High-frequency oscillatory ventilation is looked upon as a lung-protective ventilation strategy. For a further clarification of the physical processes promoting gas transport, a visualization of gas flow and the distribution of ventilation are of considerable interest. Therefore, fluorine-19 magnetic resonance imaging of the imaging gas octafluorocyclobutane (C4F8) during high-frequency oscillatory ventilation was performed in five healthy pigs. For that, a mutually compatible ventilation-imaging system was set up and transverse images were acquired every 5 sec using FLASH sequences on a 1.5 T scanner. Despite a drop in signal-to-noise ratio after the onset of high-frequency oscillatory ventilation, for each pig, the four experiments could be analyzed. A mean wash-out time (t) at 5 Hz of 52.7 6 18 sec and 125.9 6 39 sec at 10 Hz, respectively, were found for regions of interest including the whole lung.
This is in agreement with the clinical findings, in that washout of respiratory gases is significantly prolonged for increased high-frequency oscillatory ventilation frequencies.
Our study could be a good starting-point for a further optimization of high-frequency oscillatory ventilation.

Erschienen ist der Artikel in der Zeitschrift Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Volume 64, Issue 5, Seiten 1478-1483.