Regional MRI T1 mapping analysis of tobacco smoke exposed mouse lungs

Abstract: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the fourth largest cause of death worldwide and the prevalence is predicted to increase even further to make it the third largest cause of death by 2020. The main cause of the disease is exposure to tobacco smoke. COPD is a complex disease and there is a strong need of better understanding of the pathogenetic mechanisms in order to come up with novel therapeutic interventions and preventive strategies. The golden standard to image the lungs today is to use computed tomography (CT) which is an imaging modality that involves ionizing radiation and could thus harm the patient, especially with repeated exposure. New techniques in the image acquisition of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), an imaging modality that does not involve ionizing radiation, has emerged that allows for lung imaging. The work included segmentation of the lungs, image registration and partitioning of the lungs inorder to perform regional analysis. The results indicate that the mean value of the T1-parameter in the left and right lung is not affected to the same degree, where the left lung showed a greater decrease. The results also showed that the anterior parts of the lungs are not showing any statistically significant changes but the changes were instead seen in the center and posterior parts. Both lungs also showed results that indicate that the mean T1-value is recovered at the end of the longitudinal study, a phenomenon that couldn’t be explained and further studies have to be performed.