Recently-developed 4D technology may aid treatment for lung ailment, reveals research

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: A team of Australian researchers have come up with a four-dimensional lung scanning technology that can transform treatment for respiratory problems.

This newly-developed scanner generates high-resolution images of lung-tissue motion and airflow through the lungs.

This can help investigators to view and measure abnormal function in specific areas of the lung, before a disease progresses and spreads.

"Our game-changing diagnostic tool offers images of the breathing lungs, making it possible to see what is really important - not what they look like - but how they work," Andreas Fouras, Professor at Monash University in Victoria, Australia.

Current tools are out of date and require two or three pieces of diagnostic information to piece together what is happening in someone's lungs.

The new tool can identify damage at an early stage and will be able to inform intervention, with the hope of reducing further damage, the researchers added, in the work published in the journal Scientific Reports.

"With this technology clinicians can quantify the effects of treatment by simply comparing measurements from one scan to the next," noted Rajeev Samarage from Monash University.

(With IANS inputs)