Functional Lung Imaging of RILI with PET/MRI

The PI of this project was:

This project was funded by: Radiology RD

The term of this project was: September 2018 to October 2020

The number of subjects scanned during this project was: 10

The purpose of this research is to identify an imaging biomarker indicative of the early onset of progressive radiation induced lung injury (RILI) to allow for the evaluation of new potential therapies to prevent permanent lung injury resulting from radiotherapy.
This work may also provide significant insight into the physiologic mechanisms associated with the development of RILI, which are currently not well understood. There appears to be a consistent relationship between radiation dose-volume and the probability of radiation pneumonitis (RP), however the precise physiologic mechanisms remain largely unknown. Certain findings implicate heart irradiation as a risk factor for RP, which implies a potentially influential role for MRI in RILI diagnosis. This multimodal imaging study, capable of probing a wide range of structural and functional physiology, has potential to advance understanding of the mechanisms underlying RILI.