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Abstract

Abstract: DESCRIPTION (Applicant's abstract verbatim): Noble gas isotopes that can be nuclear spin-polarized are very attractive imaging agents because of their high detection sensitivity for nuclear magnetic resonance. In particular, spin-polarized 3He enables fast, gas-space imaging of the lungs and airways for clinical diagnosis and physiological studies. Unfortunately, the limited availability of 3He severely limits the number of high-resolution lung imaging studies that can be performed. We propose to develop a system to recover and recycle the rare helium isotope so that high-resolution lung imaging can become common and inexpensive. The innovation is a cryogenic gas separation system that extracts and purifies the 3He from a patient's exhalation stream and saves it for re-polarization and reuse in other patients. In Phase I we proved the feasibility of the 3He recovery system by (1) performing a proof-of-concept test that demonstrates the feasibility of efficiently separating, purifying, and sterilizing the 3He from exhalation gases, and (2) producing a conceptual design of a complete system to recover and recycle 3He. In Phase II we will build and demonstrate a complete recovery and recycling system. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Not Available

Thesaurus Terms:
biomedical equipment development, cryoscience, helium, lung imaging /visualization /scanning, magnetic resonance imaging, physical separation, respiratory gas, stable isotope, technology /technique development
contrast media
bioimaging /biomedical imaging, human subject

Institution:	CREARE, INC.
	BOX 71, ETNA RD
	HANOVER, NH 03755
Fiscal Year:	2002
Department:
Project Start:	30-SEP-1999
Project End:	27-DEC-2003
ICD:	NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, AND BLOOD INSTITUTE
IRG:	ZRG1