The scan method enabled the team, led by researchers from the University of Newcastle in the UK, to see how air moves in and out of the lungs as people breathe in patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Breathe. Received a lung transplant.
“We hope that this new type of scan may allow us to see changes in lung transplants before normal lung tests show signs of damage. This may help to start any treatment earlier. will allow and help protect the transplanted lung from further damage,” said Professor Andrew Fisher, Professor of Respiratory Transplant Medicine at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University, UK.
In research published in Radiology and JHLT Open, the team explained how they used a special gas, called perfluoropropane, that can be seen on an MRI scanner.
The patient can safely inhale and exhale the gas, and then a scan is done to see how far the gas has reached the lungs.
“Our scans show where there is air damage in patients with lung disease, and show us which parts of the lung improve with treatment,” said project lead Professor Pete Thelwall at the University of Newcastle.
The new scanning technique allows the team to quantify improvements in ventilation when patients receive treatment, in this case the widely used inhaler, bronchodilator, salbutamol. This suggests that imaging methods may be valuable in clinical trials of new treatments for lung disease.
The scan method has the potential to be used in the future in the clinical management of lung transplant recipients and other lung diseases, the researchers said.