DR. MATTHEW VINCENT CRONIN, MD
Radiology at Alvarado Rd, San Diego, CA

2013033, Dec 19, 2013

Dec 7, 2011

13/992231

Gordon Kim Prisk - San Diego CA, US
Susan Roberta Hopkins - San Diego CA, US
Richard Bruce Buxton - La Mesa CA, US
Rui Carlos Pereira De Sá - San Diego CA, US
Rebecca Jean Theilmann - San Diego CA, US
Matthew Vincent Cronin - San Diego CA, US

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - Oakland CA

A61B 5/055

600420, 600410

Methods, devices, and systems are disclosed for implementing a fully quantitative non-injectable contrast proton MRI technique to measure spatial ventilation-perfusion (VA/Q) matching and spatial distribution of ventilation and perfusion. In one aspect, a method using MRI to characterize ventilation and perfusion in a lung includes acquiring an MR image of the lung having MR data in a voxel and obtaining a breathing frequency parameter, determining a water density value, a specific ventilation value, and a perfusion value in at least one voxel of the MR image based on the MR data and using the water density value to determine an air content value, and determining a ventilation-perfusion ratio value that is the product of the specific ventilation value, the air content value, the inverse of the perfusion value, and the breathing frequency.