The purpose of this study is to develop rapid MRI techniques for imaging the lung with hyperpolarized helium-3 gas as an inhaled contrast agent. These techniques will be piloted in adults and older children before testing them in younger children and infants. The purpose is to enable imaging of non-sedated infants by imaging so fast as to freeze motion.

Brief Title

MRI for Non-Invasive Imaging in Neonates and Children

Official Title

MRI as a Means to Measure Lung Function: Non-Invasive Imaging in Neonates and Young Children

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to develop rapid MRI techniques for imaging the lung with <br /> hyperpolarized helium-3 gas as an inhaled contrast agent. These techniques will be piloted in <br /> adults and older children before testing them in younger children and infants. The purpose is <br /> to enable imaging of non-sedated infants by imaging so fast as to freeze motion.

Detailed Description

he purpose of this study is to further develop the techniques to permit the imaging of infant
lungs with hyperpolarized helium-3 MRI including techniques for acquisition in free breathing
infants and infants on a ventilator. We have developed fast imaging techniques and obtained
proof-of-concept data in infants as young as 2 months old. Many pediatric lung diseases
including CF, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) and asthma have their origins in infancy so it
would be desirable to be able to image infants with hyperpolarized gas MRI. We focused on
developing fast imaging techniques to, in essence, freeze lung motion in non-sedated infants.
We feel the technique will be more widely adopted if clinically useful images can be obtained
without sedating the infant. Some very rapid imaging techniques have been developed for
conventional proton MRI for applications such as cardiac MRI that require very short
acquisition time. We modified these techniques for use in hyperpolarized gas MRI and
developed a technique that permits the acquisition of the entire lung volume of an infant in
less than 1 second. These techniques would also be useful for imaging infants who are still
on a ventilator with the hope of increasing our understanding of lung development and
neonatal lung disease.

Outcome Measures

Outcome measures are the tests that investigators perform to prove whether or not a treatment being tested in a clinical trial is having any effect.