Vascular leak is a cardinal response to injury, and prior assessments of alveolar-capillary permeability suggest that vascular leak is present in the lungs of patients, and that its extent is associated with progression and mortality. We hypothesized that the degree of vascular leak present reflects the extent of ongoing lung injury, and that measuring lung vascular permeability consequently could provide a much-needed metric for assessing ILD disease activity and predicting disease progression. Using magnetic resonance imaging with the albumin-binding contrast agent gadofosveset, we were able to detect increased vascular permeability in the lung of patients with fibrotic ILD.
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