Preclinical lung imaging offers effective evaluation of drug candidates

Lung imaging approaches have provided health professionals with a better understanding of how the lung is affected by a range of disorders so treatments can be optimized. The use of imaging techniques in preclinical studies has enhanced understanding of disease mechanisms by observing changes at the systemic, organ, tissue, cell, and molecular levels, in response to different physiological or environmental conditions and disease states, under prescribed experimental conditions. These imaging techniques are complementary, each offering its own strength of sensitivity. Anatomical modalities such as CT and MRI mainly reveal the structure of the tissues and organs, while the functional PET visualizes the physiology and function of the tissue.

Technology has also made important leaps for data reconstruction and analysis, and better instrument stability has improved the reproducibility of experiments. More specifically, access to ultra-short echo time acquisition (UTE) for MRI experiments was an important development that now enables researchers to analyze difficult tissues with more traditional techniques.

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