Phase-contrast MRI and CFD modeling of apparent 3He gas flow in rat pulmonary airways

[Display omitted] ► 3He MRI and CFD are complimentary tools for studying inhaled gas dynamics. ► PC-MRI provides apparent values of 3He gas velocity. ► Depend on both airflow and gas diffusion. ► Can be used to develop and test patient-specific CFD models of gas transport. ► Accurately predict PC-MRI results in pulmonary airways. Phase-contrast (PC) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with hyperpolarized 3He is potentially useful for developing and testing patient-specific models of pulmonary airflow. One challenge, however, is that PC-MRI provides apparent values of local 3He velocity that not only depend on actual airflow but also on gas diffusion. This not only blurs laminar flow patterns in narrow airways but also introduces anomalous airflow structure that reflects gas-wall interactions. Here, both effects are predicted in a live rat using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and for the first time, simulated patterns of apparent 3He gas velocity are compared with in vivo PC-MRI. Results show (1) that correlations (R2) between measured and simulated airflow patterns increase from 0.23 to 0.79 simply by accounting for apparent 3He transport, and (2) that remaining differences are mainly due to uncertain airway segmentation and partial volume effects stemming from relatively coarse MRI resolution. Higher-fidelity testing of pulmonary airflow predictions should therefore be possible with future imaging improvements.