Conditions: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Keywords: COPD
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 1
Healthy volunteers: yes

Brief summary:
The overall objectives of our study are to determine the capabilities of hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI to measure lung function and its potential to sensitively detect pulmonary disease and its progression in COPD. We hypothesize that measurement of alveolar surface area, septal thickness, and capillary transit time measured with hyperpolarized 129Xe will correlate better with quality of life measures in COPD subjects than traditional diagnostic measures such as spirometry and Computed Tomography.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: All subjects will inhale hyperpolarized 129Xe gas and then have a MRI scan performed to measure lung function.

Interventions: intervention 1: Hyperpolarized 129Xe gas
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 800cc of a gas mixture containing 129Xe and nitrogen will be inhaled by a subject. The subject will hold their breath for no more than 16 seconds while a MRI scan is performed. The gas mixture can contain between 20 and 100% xenon.

Protocol document: