UM Pulmonologists Host National Experts at Inaugural Meeting on Functional Lung Imaging

Physicians with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine held an inaugural one-day conference for national experts in pulmonary medicine and radiology to discuss aspects of functional lung imaging.

The conference, held on Friday, January 27, at Fairchild Tropical Gardens, built on the work the division has undertaken to study novel approaches for assessing ventilation heterogeneity among individuals with respiratory disease.

“The meeting was a great success and was an initial step in understanding how new approaches to lung imaging can be utilized in clinical practice,” said Naresh Punjabi M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, and Mary Jane and Lino Sertel Professor of Pulmonary Disease at the Miller School.

The meeting brought together experts from Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Vanderbilt University, the University of California San Francisco, Oregon Health and Science University, Tufts University and Temple University, as well as industry partners from 4DMedical and Siemens.

Promoting Early Diagnosis

Trishul Siddharthan, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, presented on the role ventilation heterogeneity can provide in assessing disease severity.

“Although in early stages, this assessment of lung function has the potential to identify disease at an early stage and direct therapy for a broad range of respiratory diseases,” he said.

Other presentations included the role of functional lung imaging in the diagnosis of constrictive bronchiolitis among veterans exposed to burn pits, ventilation heterogeneity in asthma and COPD, and placement of endobronchial valves to treat obstructive lung disease.

Experts noted that respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and interstitial lung disease affect different parts of the lung over time. Standard measures of lung function, including spirometry, are unable to assess regional differences in ventilation within the lung, so early lung disease can be missed.

In response, discussions at the meeting centered on how radiographic measures of ventilation heterogeneity aim to apply standard imaging technologies, such as CT and MRI, across the breath cycle. This has the potential to identify disease at earlier states, as well as serve as a marker for therapy, the attendees said.

Tags: Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Dr. Naresh Punjabi, Dr. Trishul Siddharthan, lung imaging, pulmonary medicine