A groundbreaking new method allows doctors to see how air moves in and out of the lungs in real-time, offering crucial insights into lung function.
A new method of scanning lungs is able to show in real time how air moves in and out of the lungs as people take a breath in patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD ), and patients who have received a lung transplant. It enables experts to see the functioning of transplanted lungs and could enable medics to identify sooner any decline in lung function.
The scan method has enabled the team, led by researchers at Newcastle University, UK, to see how air moves in and out of the lungs as people take a breath in patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and patients who have received a lung transplant. The team explain how they use a special gas, called perfluoropropane, that can be seen on an MRI scanner. The gas can be safely breathed in and out by patients, and then scans taken to look at where in the lungs the gas has reached. The project lead, Professor Pete Thelwallis, Professor of Magnetic Resonance Physics and Director of the Centre for In Vivo Imaging at Newcastle University. He said; 'Our scans show where there is patchy ventilation in patients with lung disease, and show us which parts of the lung improve with treatment. For example, when we scan a patient as they use their asthma medication, we can see how much of their lungs and which parts of their lung are better able to move air in and out with each breath.' Using the new scanning method, the team are able to reveal the parts of the lung that air doesn't reach properly during breathing. By measuring how much of the lung is well-ventilated and how much is poorly ventilated, experts can make an assessment of the effects of a patient's respiratory disease, and they can locate and visualise the lung regions with ventilation defects
LUNGSCANNING ASTHMA COPD LUNGTRANSPLANT VENTILATION
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