Models of the Lungs and Interpretation of 3D Deposition Data

Ted Martonen, Ph.D.

National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory

Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Overview

•The efficacies of inhaled pharmacologic drugs may be improved if targeted to appropriate sites within the human respiratory system

•The spatial deposition patterns of particles can be detected using SPECT and PET imaging

•The effectiveness of such laboratory regimens has been limited by the inability of clinical investigators to clearly identify airway composition and particle deposition within the images

• Using imaging (e.g. MRI) data we can unambiguously define the surfaces of left and right lungs

• These customized lungs can be subdivided into a series of nested shells

•The composition of the shells can be determined from the network model by airway number, airway type, airway surface area or airway volume

•Deposition of an inhaled aerosol can be calculated within these shells, thus predicting the spatial distribution of an inhaled pharmacologic drug in a manner useful to clinical investigators

•Future investigations will make use of patient-specific branching models bounded by MRI-derived lung surface models

Conclusions

•John Fleming, SGH

•Dongming Hwang, IBM

•Kristin Isaacs, UNC

•Jeffrey Schroeter, CIIT

Acknowledgements