S. Solfanelli

Lung involvement in systemic sclerosis sine scleroderma treated by plasma exchange

Systemic sclerosis sine scleroderma can present in some patients as pulmonary interstitial fibrosis. Until now ten cases with this particular clinical variant, all men, have been reported in the literature. The knowledge of systemic sclerosis sine scleroderma presenting as lung interstitial involvement is important in clinical practice for an early diagnosis and correct therapeutic strategy. This work reports the clinico-serological features of two further cases, one a woman, of systemic sclerosis sine scleroderma with prevalent lung involvement, and describes the effects of therapeutic plasma exchange.

Studies of regional ventilation in asthma using 81mKr.

Functional images of pulmonary ventilation during tidal breathing can be obtained with a gamma camera by adding a continuous flow of radioactive krypton-81m (half-life = 13 sec) to the inspired air. The procedure is readily repeatable and provides ventilation images.81mKr ventilation scans were obtained in six asthmatic patients in various phases of the disease. During acute exacerbations, while chest x-rays showed only large-volume lungs, ventilation scans were grossly abnormal, showing large, segmental, or even lobar areas of reduced ventilation as well as an increase in size of the lung images. Similar alterations, although less pronounced, were shown in patients with mild-to-moderate shortness of breath and wheezing. Bronchodilators immediately improved the ventilation defects and reduced lung size. There was further improvement and eventual restoration of normal patterns following prolonged hospital treatment.

Computer Analysis of Compton Scattering Images: Acquisition, Restoration and Application in Patients with Pulmonary Oedema

The development of methods for non-invasive inspection of the internal organs of a living body is among the most important aims in the biomedical field, and many different solutions have already been suggested.

Tomographic Imaging of Regional Lung Density by 90° Compton Scattering

A tomographic method that permits the visualisation of frontal and sagittal planes of the chest according to their density has been developed in order to detect regional lung density changes in disease.1,2,3 Sectional visualisation of the chest is obtained by employing a collimated linear source of gamma photons (203Hg or 192Ir) and a gamma camera, as imaging device, to detect the Compton scattering at 90° to the primary beam. Imaging 90° scattered rays provides a view of the anatomical cross section corresponding to the path of the primary rays through chest tissues. Chest tomographic views with 500 ? counts are obtained in 1 to 2 min at the spatial resolution of the gamma camera with tissue density discrimination of 12% on the average, as demonstrated by phantom studies. The radiation dose to the patient is about 0.09 rads for each view as a maximum estimate. This radiation load is comparable with that of standard chest x-ray and considerably less than that of conventional or computerised x-ray tomography.