Abstract
COPD causes disruption of alveolar elastin and probable disruption of the elastin in the airway wall. pCLE can be used during bronchoscopy to image the elastin structure. A method for the automatic assessment of the directional distribution of the elastin fibres is presented. The structural disorder caused by the remodelling process can then be objectively quantified. Figure 1 shows examples of the analysis output, with detected elastin fibres in green, showing greater disorder in the case of mild COPD.
Figure 2 shows example histograms of the direction of the elastin fibres, showing a clear broadening of the histogram between health and COPD.
Initial results from 8 subjects, 4 healthy and 4 mild COPD (Table 1) demonstrate the difference is significant (independent t-test, p=0.0363).
These initial results suggest that this technique has potential as an objective, in vivo measure of elastin remodelling in the airways.
- © 2012 ERS