Morphometry of Human Nasal Airways In Vivo Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

ABSTRACT The epithelium of the nasal airways is recognized as being at risk of developing cancer from inhalation exposure to toxic aerosols. Because groups that are revising or developing respiratory tract dosimetry models have pointed out the lack of information on the deposition of aerosols in human nasal airways, particularly as a function of the size and shape of these airways, we utilized magnetic resonance imaging to obtain in vivo measurements of the nasal airways of a human subject. A series of 40 contiguous 3–mm–thick coronal sections were obtained using a 1.5 Tesla proton imaging unit. These images were then digitized and perimeters and cross–sectional areas of the left and right airways were obtained. The results indicated that there were marked differences in areas between the left and right sides of this subject at any given time, and that the size of the airways were significantly smaller than areas that have been reported previously based on measurements obtained from cadavers. A separate s...

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