This is what COPD looks like.

Area of Science:

• Pulmonary Medicine and Imaging Science
• Biomarker Discovery for Respiratory Diseases

Background:

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a significant health burden with limited therapeutic advancements.
• Current diagnostic methods like spirometry lack the granularity to differentiate COPD subtypes effectively.
• Suboptimal phenotyping and a poor understanding of disease pathogenesis hinder the development of new interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review novel imaging measurements using CT and MRI for COPD patient phenotyping.
• To explore how advanced imaging can reveal COPD's structural and functional characteristics beyond spirometry.
• To highlight the potential of imaging biomarkers in advancing COPD therapeutic development.

Main Methods:

• Review of recent advances in thoracic computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for lung assessment.
• Discussion of imaging approaches for measuring pulmonary ventilation, perfusion, and airway/parenchymal features.
• Focus on reproducible and sensitive quantitative imaging endpoints for COPD.

Main Results:

• CT and MRI enable regional identification and measurement of lung structure and function abnormalities.
• Imaging can provide detailed insights into airway and parenchymal contributions to COPD.
• Novel imaging measurements can serve as sensitive biomarkers for COPD phenotyping.

Conclusions:

• Advanced CT and MRI measurements offer a more comprehensive understanding of COPD phenotypes.
• These imaging biomarkers can improve patient stratification and guide the development of targeted COPD therapies.
• The use of imaging endpoints represents a promising avenue for accelerating the testing of new COPD interventions.