# Noninvasive measurement of oxygenation using quantitative susceptibility mapping

> **NIH NIH R01** · WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV · 2022 · $830,748

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The goal of this research is to develop cardiac quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) for non-invasive meas-
urement of blood oxygen saturation, towards the long-term objective of improving early diagnosis, therapeutic
decision-making, and clinical outcomes for patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH). PH is a progressive and
life shortening disorder affecting ~10% of adults over age 65. Given that PH can be irreversible in its later stages,
early diagnosis and physiologic monitoring are critically important. Impaired oxygenation of the lungs and heart
chambers (cardiac oxygenation) is a key manifestation of PH that impacts symptoms and clinical outcomes.
Increased pulmonary arterial pressure in PH impairs pulmonary oxygen exchange, decreasing delivery of oxy-
genated blood to the left heart. Systemic cardiac output is often compromised in PH, resulting a larger differential
blood oxygen saturation between the left and right heart. Invasive catheterization (cath) is currently used to
measure cardiac oxygenation but entails procedural risks, ionizing radiation exposure, and is impractical for early
diagnosis and serial monitoring - a non-invasive method to accurately measure blood oxygenation would be of
substantial utility. MRI is well suited for PH assessment as it enables integrated evaluation of pulmonary anat-
omy, pressure, as well as cardiac function and remodeling - blood oxygenation is a key gap in MRI evaluation of
PH. This gap stems from limitations in current pulse sequence technology rather than fundamental MRI physics.
It is well known that deoxygenation changes the magnetic susceptibility of blood. These changes have tradition-
ally been probed using a magnitude property of the MR signal: the transverse relaxation time (T2). However, this
requires patient-specific calibration that is difficult in clinical practice. In contrast, QSM relies on the phase of the
MR signal to directly measure susceptibility and thus cardiac oxygenation. We have obtained highly encouraging
preliminary data for QSM measurement of cardiac blood oxygenation, with close agreement between QSM and
oxygenation measured invasively. We have identified key challenges for developing cardiac QSM, including
motion suppression and prolonged scan times. The current research proposes to develop an accelerated cardiac
QSM method, and to test QSM in relation to oxygenation on invasive cath, as well as effort tolerance and clinical
prognosis. Study Aims are as follows: (1) Develop accelerated cardiac QSM using free-breathing acquisition and
optimized reconstruction. (2) Test accelerated and current cardiac QSM among PH patients in comparison to
T2-based cardiac oxygenation and the reference standard of invasive cardiac catheterization. (3) Determine
whether cardiac QSM stratifies clinical severity and predicts PH disease progression. The expected outcome of
this research is a non-invasive method for measuring cardiac oxygenation – a critically ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10322146
- **Project number:** 5R01HL151686-02
- **Recipient organization:** WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV
- **Principal Investigator:** Pascal Spincemaille
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $830,748
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-01-01 → 2025-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10322146

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10322146, Noninvasive measurement of oxygenation using quantitative susceptibility mapping (5R01HL151686-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10322146. Licensed CC0.

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