USE OF A HYPERPOLARIZED GAS FOR MRI DETECTION OF REGIONAL VARIATIONS IN OXYGEN UPTAKE FROM THE LUNGS

摘要

The invention provides a method of detecting regional variations in oxygenuptake from the lungs of an air-breathing animal subject,said method comprising administering into the lungs of said subject adiagnostically effective amount of a gaseous hyperpolarized magneticresonance imaging agent, detecting the magnetic resonance signal from saidagent in said lungs, determining the temporal variation inrelaxation rate for said signal for at least one region of interest whitinsaid lungs, and from said variation generating a qualitative orquantitative value or image indicative of the oygen concentration in at leastone region of interest, and if desired the time dependency ofsuch concentration.