bronchoscopy
Imaging Advance Offers New View on Allergic Asthma
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: OR-OCT images of the airways of a healthy person (left) and a person with allergic asthma (right). The colorized portion highlights airway smooth muscle, with thinner areas in purple and black and thicker areas in yellow and orange. Credit: Cho et al., Science Translational Medicine (2016)
You probably know people who sneeze a little when they encounter plant pollens, pet dander, or other everyday allergens. For others, however, these same allergens can trigger a serious asthma attack that can make breathing a life-or-death struggle. Now, two NIH-funded research groups have teamed up to help explain the differences in severity underlying the two types of reactions.
In the studies, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, used an innovative imaging tool to zoom in on a person’s airways safely in real time to gain an unprecedented view of how his or her body reacts to allergens [1,2]. The imaging revealed key differences between the asthma and non-asthma groups in the smooth muscle tissue that surrounds critical airways, and is responsible for constriction. In a complementary series of experiments, researchers also uncovered heightened immune responses in the airways of folks with allergic asthma. The findings offer important new clues in the quest to better understand and guide treatment for asthma, a condition that affects more than 300 million people around the world.
The factors driving airway constriction in people with asthma have been poorly understood in part because, until now, there hasn’t been a way to view airway smooth muscle in action. As described in the journal Science Translational Medicine, Melissa Suter and colleagues adapted an established form of imaging called optical coherence tomography (OCT) to help fill this gap. Standard OCT produces an image by measuring the amount of light reflected back from body tissues, but such images aren’t sufficient to distinguish airway smooth muscle from other tissues.
Cool Videos: A Look Inside a Mouse’s Lung
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
If you have ever wondered what it is like to be an oxygen molecule inhaled through the lungs, here is your chance to find out! In this movie, we take a fantastic voyage through the slippery airways of the adult mouse lung.
We begin at the top in the main pipeline, called the bronchus, just below the trachea and wind through a system of increasingly narrow tubes. As you zoom through the airways, take note of the cilia (seen as goldish streaks); these tiny, hair-like structures move dust, germs, and mucus from smaller air passages to larger ones. Our quick trip concludes with a look into the alveoli — the air sacs where oxygen is delivered to red blood cells and carbon dioxide is removed and exhaled.
