May 04, 2023
This online webinar has now taken place.
A recording of the event will be made available in due course.
The MTWC lecture series is primarily aimed at researchers and healthcare professionals, which means that elements of each lecture are likely to be very technical. However, interested members of the public are welcome to attend. Read on to find out more about what Dr Jacob will talk about during his MTWC lecture.
Image Analysis in Fibrosing Lung Disease
Lung disease can be imaged by taking three-dimensional photos of the lungs called computed tomography scans, commonly called CT scans. CT scans can identify areas of lung damaged by diseases such as lung fibrosis. Lung CT scans are typically assessed in a hospital by a specialist imaging doctor called a radiologist. While radiologists can diagnose a disease on the CT scan well, estimating precisely how much of the lungs are damaged can be very challenging. Looking over 500 images of a CT scan and calculating what percentage of the lung is damaged on each image is just too complicated and time-consuming. Yet this represents crucial information for a patient and clinician when planning treatment options.
Using computers to accurately quantify the amount of damage on a CT scan could be a possible solution.
My talk will describe how using computers to analyse CT scans is advancing our understanding of how lung fibrosis progresses over time.
Using computers, we can now identify new patterns of damage on CT scans. Identification of new imaging patterns can help identify patients with distinct subtypes of fibrosis, who may benefit from different treatments.
I will end by describing new imaging techniques that will help researchers, clinicians and patients understand how the microscopic structure of the lung is altered as fibrosis progresses.
Dr Joe Jacob Biography
"Joseph qualified in medicine from Imperial College London, and following early training years in London and the South East, he worked for Medecins sans Frontieres for 2 years in Darfur, Sudan and India. He underwent radiology training at Kings College Hospital, London and Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand before completing an MD Research with Imperial College London under Professor David Hansell at the Royal Brompton Hospital in 2016.
His primary research interest has been in the use of computer tools to quantify lung damage. He was awarded a 5-year Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship in 2018 at University College London, to evaluate the role of computer analysis of CT imaging to detect damage in lung cancer screening populations. Other research interests, based at the Centre for Medical Image Computing at University College London relate to the use of computer-analysis of CT imaging in fibrosing lung diseases and airways diseases. He has co-authored over 100 papers, won national and international awards for his work and was awarded the 2017 best thesis prize by the National Heart and Lung Institute.
He is the Research lead for the British Society of Thoracic Imaging and will be appointed as the Roentgen Professor for the year 2021 by the Royal College of Radiologists."
You may also be interested in:
Hope for All Research Appeal