The Applied Chest Imaging Laboratory (ACIL) is a research lab and core service provider at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Our group has developed and implemented state-of-the art imaging analysis techniques to objectively assess clinically relevant features of the intraparenchymal pulmonary vasculature and surrounding lung parenchyma. This suite of tools facilitate:
- Enhanced sub-voxel assessment of pulmonary vascular morphology to provide the most accurate metrics of vessel size.
- High fidelity differentiation of the arterial and venous vascular beds to uniquely assess pre vs. post-capillary responses of the vasculature to therapeutic intervention (changes in vessel volume and tortuosity).
- Longitudinal co-registration of imaging at serial time points to enable vessel-specific assessments of target engagement.
- Inspiration to expiration co-registration for functional assesstment of ventalation defects and gas trapping.
- Advanced characterization of injury patterns in the lung parenchyma (emphysema, interstitial change, inflammation, etc.) and adjacent airways (wall thickening, bronchiectatic dilation) that may influence vessel-specific responses to therapy.
These metrics have been featured in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications including the New England Journal of Medicine and we have served as imaging core in multiple local, national, and international Federal (NIH/DoD) and industry-sponsored clinical (observational and interventional), epidemiologic and genetic investigations.
For more information about our core services please contact us