Copyright
©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Phenotyping emphysema and airways disease: Clinical value of quantitative radiological techniques
Diana Crossley, Alice Turner, Centre for Translational Inflammation Research, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TH, United Kingdom
Deepak Subramanian, Royal Derby Hospital, Derby DE22 3NE, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Turner A designed the review question; Turner A and Subramanian D reviewed the main text; Crossley D wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Diana Crossley, MbChB, MRCP, Clinical Research Fellow, Centre for Translational Inflammation Research, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Mindelsohn Way, Birmingham B15 2TH, United Kingdom. crossled@adf.bham.ac.uk
Telephone: +44-121-3713264 Fax: +44-121-3713203
Received: August 31, 2016
Peer-review started: September 1, 2016
First decision: November 10, 2016
Revised: December 20, 2016
Accepted: January 11, 2017
Article in press: January 14, 2017
Published online: March 28, 2017
Peer-review started: September 1, 2016
First decision: November 10, 2016
Revised: December 20, 2016
Accepted: January 11, 2017
Article in press: January 14, 2017
Published online: March 28, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: Phenotyping emphysematous patients radiologically allow physicians to diagnose and deliver tailored and targeted therapies that are not possible with spirometry. When patients are divided into chronic bronchitis or emphysema on computed tomography (CT), they have significantly different clinical features and spirometry, demonstrating its ability to characterise phenotypic differences. CT offers accurate mapping and measurement of emphysema whereas magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide functional information relating to ventilation and perfusion. This unique feature of MRI can help prognosticate patients in whom surgery is being considered. CT and MRI have both been sufficiently validated clinically and pathologically.