Bdaiwi Abdullah S, Willmering Matthew M, Plummer Joseph W, Hussain Riaz, Roach David J, Parra-Robles Juan, Niedbalski Peter J, Woods Jason C, Walkup Laura L, Cleveland Zackary I
Center for Pulmonary Imaging Research, Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Magn Reson Med. 2025 Mar;93(3):1220-1237. doi: 10.1002/mrm.30347. Epub 2024 Oct 31.
Hyperpolarized Xe MRI presents opportunities to assess regional pulmonary microstructure and function. Ongoing advancements in hardware, sequences, and image processing have helped it become increasingly adopted for both research and clinical use. As the number of applications and users increase, standardization becomes crucial. To that end, this study developed an executable, open-source Xe image processing pipeline (XIPline) to provide a user-friendly, graphical user interface-based analysis pipeline to analyze and visualize Xe MR data, including scanner calibration, ventilation, diffusion-weighted, and gas exchange images.
The customizable XIPline is designed in MATLAB to analyze data from all three major scanner platforms. Calibration data is processed to calculate optimal flip angle and determineXe frequency offset. Data processing includes loading, reconstructing, registering, segmenting, and post-processing images. Ventilation analysis incorporates three common algorithms to calculate ventilation defect percentage and novel techniques to assess defect distribution and ventilation texture. Diffusion analysis features ADC mapping, modified linear binning to account for ADC age-dependence, and common diffusion morphometry methods. Gas exchange processing uses a generalized linear binning for data acquired using 1-point Dixon imaging.
The XIPline workflow is demonstrated using analysis from representative calibration, ventilation, diffusion, and gas exchange data.
The application will reduce redundant effort when implementing new techniques across research sites by providing an open-source framework for developers. In its current form, it offers a robust and adaptable platform for Xe MRI analysis to ensure methodological consistency, transparency, and support for collaborative research across multiple sites and MRI manufacturers.
超极化氙气磁共振成像（MRI）为评估局部肺组织微观结构和功能提供了契机。硬件、序列和图像处理方面的不断进步促使其在研究和临床应用中越来越多地被采用。随着应用和用户数量的增加，标准化变得至关重要。为此，本研究开发了一个可执行的开源氙气图像处理管道（XIPline），以提供一个基于用户友好的图形用户界面的分析管道，用于分析和可视化氙气MR数据，包括扫描仪校准、通气、扩散加权和气体交换图像。
可定制的XIPline在MATLAB中设计，用于分析来自所有三个主要扫描仪平台的数据。对校准数据进行处理，以计算最佳翻转角并确定氙气频率偏移。数据处理包括加载、重建、配准、分割和图像后处理。通气分析采用三种常用算法来计算通气缺陷百分比，并采用新技术来评估缺陷分布和通气纹理。扩散分析的特点是ADC映射、修正线性分箱以考虑ADC的年龄依赖性，以及常用的扩散形态测量方法。气体交换处理对使用1点狄克逊成像采集的数据采用广义线性分箱。
使用来自代表性校准、通气、扩散和气体交换数据的分析展示了XIPline工作流程。
该应用程序通过为开发者提供一个开源框架，将减少在多个研究地点实施新技术时的重复工作。以其当前形式，它为氙气MRI分析提供了一个强大且适应性强的平台，以确保方法的一致性、透明度，并支持跨多个地点和MRI制造商的合作研究。
