BRP -- Image And Model Based Analysis Of Lung Disease
Abstract: Ventilation, or the movement of
respiratory gases in and out of the lung for exchange with the blood, is one of the primary functions of the lung. Ventilation is not uniform throughout the lung, however, and this distribution of ventilation may be further
disturbed in disease processes. The ability to non-invasively measure the movement of gases throughout the lung and to relate this to the distribution of blood flow is essential to understanding normal lung function and
diagnosing lung disease. These studies will use a non-toxic gas, xenon (Xe), which is visible on CT images to quantify ventilation throughout the lung. Utilizing the state of the art CT imaging technologies which will be
available to this project and animal models, the long term goal of these studies is to develop the Xe-CT ventilation method to the point where it can be used to safely determine ventilation distribution in humans and be
part of the comprehensive evaluation of human lung function. Specific steps in this process include refinement of the method and extension of it to whole lung imaging, validation of the technique in well understood animal
models of normal and abnormal lungs, combination of the ventilation measurements with simultaneously developed (in other projects in the proposal) blood flow measurements, application of these methods to animal models of
lung disease, and then finally, use of the method in human studies.
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