Developing Hyperpolarized Butane Gas for Ventilation Lung Imaging

NMR hyperpolarization dramatically improves the detection sensitivity of magnetic resonance through the increase in nuclear spin polarization. Because of the sensitivity increase by several orders of magnitude, additional applications have been unlocked, including imaging of gases in physiologically relevant conditions. Hyperpolarized ¹²⁹Xe gas recently received FDA approval as the first inhalable gaseous MRI contrast agent for clinical functional lung imaging of a wide range of pulmonary diseases. However, production and utilization of hyperpolarized ¹²⁹Xe gas faces a number of translational challenges including the high cost and complexity of contrast agent production and imaging using proton-only (i.e., conventional) clinical MRI scanners, which are typically not suited to scan ¹²⁹Xe nuclei. As a solution to circumvent the translational challenges of hyperpolarized ¹²⁹Xe, we have recently demonstrated the feasibility of a simple and cheap process for production of proton-hyperpolarized propane gas contrast agent using ultralow-cost disposable production equipment and demonstrated the feasibility of lung ventilation imaging using hyperpolarized propane gas in excised pig lungs. However, previous pilot studies have concluded that the hyperpolarized state of propane gas decays very fast with an exponential decay T ₁ constant of ∼0.8 s at 1 bar (physiologically relevant pressure); moreover, the previously reported production rates were too slow for potential clinical utilization. Here, we investigate the feasibility of high-capacity production of hyperpolarized butane gas via heterogeneous parahydrogen-induced polarization using Rh nanoparticle-based catalyst utilizing butene gas as a precursor for parahydrogen pairwise addition. We demonstrate a remarkable result: the lifetime of the hyperpolarized state can be nearly doubled compared to that of propane (T ₁ of ∼1.6 s and long-lived spin-state T _S of ∼3.8 s at clinically relevant 1 bar pressure). Moreover, we demonstrate a production speed of up to 0.7 standard liters of hyperpolarized gas per second. These two synergistic developments pave the way to biomedical utilization of proton-hyperpolarized gas media for ventilation imaging. Indeed, here we demonstrate the feasibility of phantom imaging of hyperpolarized butane gas in Tedlar bags and also the feasibility of subsecond 2D ventilation gas imaging in excised rabbit lungs with 1.6 × 1.6 mm² in-plane resolution using a clinical MRI scanner. The demonstrated results have the potential to revolutionize functional pulmonary imaging with a simple and inexpensive on-demand production of proton-hyperpolarized gas contrast media, followed by visualization on virtually any MRI scanner, including emerging bedside low-field MRI scanner technology.