Stratification and phenotyping of pulmonary vascular disease with imaging

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is when a person has high blood pressure in their pulmonary arteries. They patients are short of breath, fatigued and have poor life expectancy. Even in the pure form, called idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH), there can be big differences in the disease from patient to patient. There is a big challenge to better understand the different types of disease, particularly IPAH and lung diseases, in terms of genetics, response to treatment and life expectancy.

I aim to develop a better way to diagnose patients using computer-based methods to combine information from magnetic resonance images (MRI), together with computed tomography (CT scans). I will also identify patients with common clinical and scan features (called phenotypes) and predict life expectancy. Working with the national IPAH cohort, I will perform a detailed analysis of CT and MRI scans comparing genetic mutations. In addition, working with researchers in the USA on a group of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), I will use patient images alongside genetic data to investigate which patients are prone to developing PH, how PH is related to lung disease in COPD and the effect on life expectancy.