Contrast-free 3D Pulmonary Perfusion Imaging based on Multi-slice 2D MRI Scan with PREFUL Reconstruction

Motivation: Pulmonary perfusion imaging is vital for lung disease diagnostics by offering the functional assessments. Currently, the Fourier decomposition-based methods have shown promising results via 2D non-contrast free-breathing MRI. Goal(s): To investigate the feasibility of 3D lung perfusion imaging using multiple 2D MRI scans. Approach: First, we employed the PREFUL to generate the multiple 2D lung perfusion maps. Then, we interpolated these multiple 2D perfusion maps to form the 3D perfusion map that covered the whole lung volume. Results: The generated 3D perfusion map demonstrated remarkable consistency in all spatial directions and achieved good agreement with the clinical gold standard. Impact: Multiple 2D MRI scans overcome the longer acquisition time of contrast-free MRI in perfusion imaging and show the potential to assess 3D lung functions.