Soft Tissue X-Ray Could Help Cystic Fibrosis Patients

A new X-ray system that allows the imaging of soft tissue could be used to non-invasively track the effectiveness of treatments for cystic fibrosis.

AsianScientist (Aug. 22, 2014) – Scientists have developed an x-ray imaging system that enables researchers to see ‘live’ how effective treatments are for cystic fibrosis.

Published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the imaging method allows researchers to monitor the effectiveness of a treatment for the life-threatening genetic disorder.

Cystic fibrosis affects many of the body’s systems, but most severely the lungs, and currently it can take several months to measure how effective treatment is for the early-fatal lung disease.

Dr. Kaye Morgan, lead researcher from Monash University, said the new x-ray imaging method allows researchers to look at soft tissue structures, for example the brain, airways and lungs, which are effectively invisible in conventional x-ray images.

“At the moment we typically need to wait for a cystic fibrosis treatment to have an effect on lung health, measured by either a lung CT scan or breath measurement, to see how effective that treatment is,” Dr. Morgan said.

“However the new imaging method allows us for the first time to non-invasively see how the treatment is working ‘live’ on the airway surface.”

Dr. Morgan said this x-ray imaging method would enable doctors and researchers to measure how effective treatments are, and progress new treatments to the clinic at a much quicker rate.

“Because we will be able to see how effectively treatments are working straight away, we’ll be able to develop new treatments a lot more quickly, and help better treat people with cystic fibrosis,” she said

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Dr. Morgan said the new imaging method, which was developed using a synchrotron x-ray source, may also open up possibilities in assessing how effective treatments were for other lung, heart and brain diseases.

The article can be found at: Kaye et al. (2014) In Vivo X-Ray Imaging Reveals Improved Airway Surface Hydration after a Therapy Designed for Cystic Fibrosis.

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Source: Monash University.
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