Contrast enhanced longitudinal changes observed in an experimental bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis rat model by radial DCE-MRI at 9.4T.

Identifying biomarkers in fibrotic lung disease is key for early anti-fibrotic intervention. Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI offers valuable perfusion-related insights in fibrosis but adapting human MRI methods to rodents poses challenges. Here, we explored these translational challenges for the inflammatory and fibrotic phase of a bleomycin lung injury model in rats. Eleven male Sprague-Dawley rats received a single intratracheal dose of bleomycin (1000iU), four control rats received saline. Imaging was performed on days 7 and 28 post-induction. Ultra-short echo time imaging was used to image the lung for 7 minutes after which Clariscan was injected intravenously. Lung signal changes were measured for an additional 21 minutes. Images were reconstructed with a sliding-window approach, providing a temporal resolution of 10 seconds per image. After imaging on day 28, animals were euthanized, and lungs were collected for histology. Bleomycin-exposed rats initially exhibited reduced body weight, recovering to control levels after 20 days. Lung volume increased in bleomycin animals from 4.4±0.9 ml in controls to 5.5±0.5 ml and 6.5±1.2 ml on day 7 and 28. DCE-MRI showed no change of initial gradient of relative enhancement in the curves between controls and bleomycin animals on day 7 and 28 post-induction. On day 7, the DCE-MRI washout phase in bleomycin animals had higher signals than the saline group and than observed at a later time point. Lung pixels were binned in 7 enhancement classes. On day 28, the size of low relative enhancement bins almost doubled in volume compared to controls and animals on day 7 post-induction. Histology on day 28 suggests that findings could be explained by changes in lung tissue density due to lung volume increase. Adapting this clinical MRI method to rodents at 9.4T remains a challenge. Future studies may benefit from lower field strength MRI combined with higher temporal resolution DCE-MRI.