Lung Scintigraphy in the Assessment of Aerosol Deposition and Clearance

Environmental and occupational exposure to particulate aerosols is known to have negative health effects. However little is known about how these aerosols trigger the development of pathophysiological mechanisms in the body or the fate of ultrafine particles in the lungs after inhalation. The development of aerosols of different origin that can be labeled to a large variety with radionuclides compatible with clinical gamma camera systems opens the possibility of using lung scintigraphy imaging to study these causalities in detail. Lung scintigraphy (planar or SPECT) allows regional mapping of the deposition of the aerosol in the lungs and the dynamic assessment of particle clearance and translocation from the healthy and affected human lungs. In this paper, we will review the unique features of lung scintigraphy applied to aerosol clearance studies in humans.