Oxygen-enhanced Ultrashort Echo Time MRI in Diagnosis of Benign and Malignant Solid Pulmonary Nodules: a preliminary study

Motivation: People pay more and more attention to the high incidence and mortality of lung cancer. Goal(s): To develop a non-invasive, radiation-free imaging scheme to distinguish between benign and malignant solid pulmonary nodules and to improve the management of patients with pulmonary nodules. Approach: Two three-dimensional ultrashort echo time series scans of pulmonary nodules were performed on 3.0T MRI under the condition of 21% and 100% oxygen, respectively, and the percent signal enhancement was used as the evaluation index of benign and malignant nodules. Results: The increase of the percent signal enhancement in benign pulmonary nodules was higher than that in malignant pulmonary nodules. Impact: This imaging tool will reduce or eliminate the radiation damage caused by computed tomography, reduce clinicians' over-dependence on high resolution computed tomography, and bring new gospel for personalized and accurate diagnosis and treatment of patients.