Transcript No Slide Title

Models of the Lungs and
Interpretation of 3D Deposition Data
Ted Martonen, Ph.D.
Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory
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
Conclusions
• 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
Acknowledgements
•John Fleming, SGH
•Dongming Hwang, IBM
•Kristin Isaacs, UNC
•Jeffrey Schroeter, CIIT