Phelinet - Polarized Helium Lung Imaging Network

Project

Respiratory conditions impose a huge burden on society. The top five respiratory diseases account for 17.4% of all deaths and 13.3% of disability-adjusted life years. Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) have become the fourth cause of death worldwide whereas lung cancer, lower respiratory tract infections and tuberculosis are among the 10 leading causes. Asthma draws somewhat less attention than other respiratory conditions due to its low fatality rate, but affects about 150 million people worldwide and is the most prevalent chronic disease in childhood.
Diagnosis of lung diseases has traditionally relied on imaging techniques like plain chest radiography, high resolution computed tomography (CT) or lung scintigraphy. Inherent patient exposure to ionising radiation limits the extensive use of these techniques, and excludes repeated use for accurate follow-up of the evolution of the disease and of the response to treatment or surgery. High-resolution lung magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can now be performed using hyperpolarized (HP) Helium3 gas as an inhaled magnetic tracer. HP Helium3 lung MRI starts to compete with routine diagnostic tests, providing both a spatial resolution now similar to that of CT and better than that of lung scintigraphy, and a temporal resolution that outperforms both CT and scintigraphy.

Objectives

The european network PHELINET (Polarized Helium Lung Imaging Network), gathers 17 partners from the academic and private sectors with trans-disciplinary expertise for the development and the application of “Innovative, non-invasive lung MRI techniques for clinical diagnosis and validation of lung therapy”. The research activities will focus on clinical and pre-clinical imaging studies, on innovative instrumental and methodological development in the MRI field and on the optimization of fundamental approaches and engineering techniques for the production and the use of hyperpolarized Helium3.As a Marie Curie Research and Training Network supported by the European Commission, PHELINET aims at providing fundamental and experimental experience to recruited fellows to permit the implementation of collaborative research activities between the academic and industrial network partners working in the fields of physics, engineering, biology and radiology.