4DMedical lung imagery

sheds more light on ‘long

COVID’ effects
Reuters / 07:05 AM September 24, 2021

FILE PHOTO: A radiologist shows infected lungs by the coronavirus

disease (COVID-19) at the CHR Centre Hospitalier Regional de la
Citadelle Hospital in Liege, Belgium, April 22, 2020. REUTERS/Yves
Herman
Doctors in California are using cutting-edge lung scans to better
understand the effects of ‘long COVID’ among patients who suffer
severe symptoms months after their initial bout of infection.

The scans by 4DMedical allow physicians to detect areas of high and

low lung ventilation using existing equipment in hospitals, said
founder and Chief Executive Andreas Fouras.
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The “four dimensions” refers to the scan’s ability to measure the

phases of breath as it passes into and out of the lungs.

“It takes a short video sequence. We use about 20 seconds worth of

video sequence of the patient just breathing naturally,” said Fouras.
“From that video sequence, we’re able to mathematically calculate the
motion and then the airflow everywhere around the lungs.”

The imagery shows evidence of lung damage that cannot be seen on a

CT scan or X-ray, said Dr. Ray Casciari, a pulmonologist at the St.
Joseph Hospital in Orange, California, who serves as 4DMedical’s chief
clinical adviser.

The hospital is one of several across the United States where the
technology is being tested.

“The green area is an area of average ventilation and the red that you
see out here is very poor, in fact, no ventilation,” said Casciari, showing
a lung image of a COVID pneumonia patient with symptoms including
shortness of breath.

The technology uses algorithms and mathematical models to convert

sequences of X-ray images into quantitative data.

“They do some pretty ordinary imaging… and then we analyze those

images,” Fouras said. “We take that X-ray video, layer our software on
top of that,
FILE PHOTO: A radiologist shows infected lungs by the coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) at the CHR Centre Hospitalier Regional de la
Citadelle Hospital in Liege, Belgium, April 22, 2020. REUTERS/Yves
Herman

and create the scans.”

The technology is most useful for long COVID patients who have lung
damage, Fouras said.

Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1492207/4dmedical-lung-imagery-sheds-
more-light-on-long-covid-effects#ixzz77TcNc5qp
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