Magnetic resonance imaging of the time course of hyperpolarized Xe gas exchange in the human lungs and heart.

Purpose: To perform magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), human lung imaging, and quantification of the gas-transfer dynamics of hyperpolarized xenon-129 (HPX) from the alveoli into the blood plasma.

Materials And Methods: HPX MRI with iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetry and least-square estimation (IDEAL) approach were used with multi-interleaved spiral k-space sampling to obtain HPX gas and dissolved phase images. IDEAL time-series images were then obtained from ten subjects including six normal subjects and four patients with pulmonary emphysema to test the feasibility of the proposed technique for capturing xenon-129 gas-transfer dynamics (XGTD).

The Suspected CANcer (SCAN) pathway: protocol for evaluating a new standard of care for patients with non-specific symptoms of cancer.

Introduction: Cancer survival in England lags behind most European countries, due partly to lower rates of early stage diagnosis. We report the protocol for the evaluation of a multidisciplinary diagnostic centre-based pathway for the investigation of 'low-risk but not no-risk' cancer symptoms called the Suspected CANcer (SCAN) pathway. SCAN is a new standard of care being implemented in Oxfordshire; one of a number of pathways implemented during the second wave of the Accelerate, Coordinate, Evaluate (ACE) programme, an initiative which aims to improve England's cancer survival rates through establishing effective routes to early diagnosis.