H NMR Measurements of Wet/Dry Ratio andT1,T2Distributions in Lung

Proton-magnetic-resonance measurements have been carried out on juvenile porcine peripheral lung parenchyma. The free-induction-decay signal contained a motionally restricted component which decayed in a few tens of microseconds and a mobile component with aT₂time greater than 1 ms. The average second moment,M₂, for the motionally restricted signal was found to be 3.42 ± (0.25) × 10⁹s⁻². TheT₂distribution for the mobile signal consistently showed four resolvable components ofT₂range: 2–6, 10–40, 80–110, and 190–400 ms. The 2–6 ms component was present in a fully dehydrated preparation and was therefore assigned to a nonaqueous lung constituent. The motionally restricted FID component had aT₁= 0.772 ± 0.11 s and the mobile component had aT₁= 0.967 ± 0.02 s. The hydrogen content per unit mass for lung parenchyma and water were estimated in two ways: (1) on the basis of chemical content and (2) on the basis of comparison of restricted and mobile signals to the gravimetric (G) water content for a lung sample studied at a wide range of water contents. Lung wet/dry weight ratios were estimated from the free-induction decays and compared with gravimetric measurement. The ratio of (wet/dry)_NMR/(wet/dry)_Gwas 1.00 ± 0.08 and 1.00 ± 0.05 for the two methods of estimation.