Correction of inhaled volume in 19F gas wash-in MRI for improved lung ventilation assessment

Motivation: In 19F MR pulmonary ventilation imaging, variations in inspiratory gas volumes can compromise the evaluation of dynamic ventilation parameters. Goal(s): To account for these variations, a correction of the inhaled volumes (CIV) can be applied during post-processing. Approach: This study examined the repeatability of dynamic ventilation parameters and the correlation with spirometric lung function testing with and without CIV in 24 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Results: Using CIV increases the correlation of all assessed ventilation parameters with spirometry as well as their repeatability in terms of intraclass correlation coefficient and coefficient of variation between different scans. Impact: The increased repeatability and stronger correlation with spirometry suggest that the implementation of CIV can improve the evaluation of the pulmonary gas wash-in process retrospectively, without requiring additional MR scans or changes in the experimental procedure.