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DEFINITION OF AIRWAY COMPOSITION WITHIN GAMMA CAMERA IMAGES
Citation:
Martonen, T., Y. Yang, AND M. Dolovick. DEFINITION OF AIRWAY COMPOSITION WITHIN GAMMA CAMERA IMAGES. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-94/408 (NTIS PB95125381).
Description:
The efficacies on inhaled pharmacologic drugs in the prophylaxis and treatment if airway diseases could be improved if particles were selectively directed to appropriate Sites. n the medical arena, planar gamma scintillation cameras may be employed to study factors affecting such particle deposition patterns within the lung. owever, the value and versatility of such instruments are compromised by the limited resolution of their images. pecifically, it is not possible to determine the composition of their central (c) or large airway, intermediate (I) , and peripheral (P) or small airway zones. erein, an analytical model is presented to assist the clinician in the systematic analysis and interpretation of gamma camera images. sing the supercomputer (Cray Y-NP) a range of human lung morphologies have been mapped to function as templates to superimposed upon scans. he model is intended to complement laboratory regimens by providing a heretofore unavailable method to define the C, I, and P zones of the human lung on an airway generation-by-generation basis. uantitative value can now be assigned to the degree of overlapping that exists in the images. or example, for a "typical" lung morphology consisting of 16,777,215 airways (total) , the C zone itself may contain 1,608,246 airways of which 1,595,940, or 99.2%, are alveolated airways. y identifying composition our intent is to integrate the model into future aerosol therapy protocols and thereby assist procedures for targeted delivery of airborne pharmaceuticals.