Longitudinal changes in structural lung abnormalities using MDCT in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with asthma-like features

摘要

Background Some patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have asthma-like features. However, there have been few reports on the structural lung abnormalities found in this patient population. Multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) can detect emphysematous low-attenuation areas (LAA) within the lung, airway thickness (wall area percentage, WA%), and the loss of pulmonary vasculature as the percentage of small pulmonary vessels with cross-sectional area (CSA) less than 5 mm 2 (%CSA5). We analyzed differences in structural lung changes over time between patients with COPD and those with COPD with asthma-like features using these CT parameters.