Early Detection of Transplant-Related Lung Injury with CT
Collaborators: Stanford Pulmonology
Bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) is a serious lung complication after hematopoietic cell transplantation that leads to progressive airway obstruction and reduced survival. Diagnosis is typically based on pulmonary function testing, which may only detect disease after significant and often irreversible lung damage has occurred.
In this work, quantitative CT (qCT) was used to extract voxel-level measures of lung function from inspiratory and expiratory scans. Metrics such as air trapping and regional lung strain were evaluated to identify early disease and distinguish between BOS subtypes. Compared to standard imaging and pulmonary function testing, qCT demonstrated the ability to detect early BOS and differentiate disease severity with strong diagnostic performance.
Publication Link: ASH Publications

Figure A: Visual abstract from the study illustrating the use of quantitative CT to identify early bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome and differentiate disease subtypes based on imaging-derived metrics.
The 3DQ Lab contributed by generating quantitative CT outputs to support analysis and clinical interpretation. IMBIO 4-color visualizations were produced from inspiratory and expiratory CT data, combining multiple quantitative metrics such as air trapping and regional lung deformation into a single, interpretable map. This allowed areas of abnormal lung function to be identified more clearly than with standard grayscale imaging.
In addition, customized 4-color outputs were developed in collaboration with clinical teams to align with how BOS is assessed in practice. These visualizations provided a consistent way to evaluate disease presence and distribution across patients, supporting both diagnostic decision-making and standardized data analysis for research and publication.
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