Fluorine-19 ((19)F) MRI of the lungs using inhaled inert fluorinated gases can potentially provide high quality images of the lungs that are similar in quality to those from hyperpolarized (HP) noble gas MRI. Inert fluorinated gases have the advantages of being nontoxic, abundant, and inexpensive compared with HP gases. Due to the high gyromagnetic ratio of (19)F, there is sufficient thermally ...

Mitchell SJ, Doolette DJ. Selective vulnerability of the inner ear to decompression sickness in divers with right-to-left shunt: the role of tissue gas supersaturation. J Appl Physiol 106: 298–301, 2009. First published September 18, 2008; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.90915.2008.— Inner ear decompression sickness has been strongly associated with the presence of right-to-left shunts. The implied in...

The mismatching of alveolar ventilation and perfusion (VA/Q) is the major determinant of impaired gas exchange. The gold standard for measuring VA/Q distributions is based on measurements of the elimination and retention of infused inert gases. Conventional multiple inert gas elimination technique (MIGET) uses gas chromatography (GC) to measure the inert gas partial pressures, which requires to...

A sealed atmosphere in a mined-out area of an underground coal mine is simply a volume with homogeneous composition governed by boundary conditions. This paper presents a mathematical model based upon the conservation of mass principle that describes the flow of air (nitrogen and oxygen), methane and carbon dioxide into and out of a sealed atmosphere and the time-dependent changes in gas concen...

BACKGROUND The respiratory mass spectrometer is the current gold-standard technique for performing multiple-breath inert gas washout (MBW), but is expensive and lacks portability. A number of alternative techniques have recently been described. OBJECTIVES We aimed to validate, using an in vitro lung model, an open-circuit MBW system that utilises a portable photoacoustic gas analyser, with su...