The use of combined single photon emission computed tomography and X-ray computed tomography to assess the fate of inhaled aerosol.

Background: Gamma camera imaging is widely used to assess pulmonary aerosol deposition. Conventional planar imaging provides limited information on its regional distribution. In this study, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was used to describe deposition in three dimensions (3D) and combined with X-ray computed tomography (CT) to relate this to lung anatomy.

Airflow modeling of steady inspiration in two realistic proximal airway trees reconstructed from human thoracic tomodensitometric images.

Detailed description of the flow field in human airways is highly important to better understand human breathing and provide a patient's customized diagnosis. An integrated numerical simulation platform is presently proposed in order to incorporate medical images into a numerical software to calculate flow field and to analyze it in terms of fluid dynamics. The platform was set up to compute steady inspiratory airflow in realistic human airways reconstructed from tomodensitometric medical images at resting breathing conditions.