Penn Radiology Division of Thoracic Imaging
Clinical experience
The Thoracic Imaging Division participates in a very active, high-volume and growing clinical service. Approximately 100,000 digital chest images and over 25,000 chest CT scans are performed annually, the latter increasing exponentially each year. The division is also responsible for a rapidly growing number of transthoracic needle biopsy procedures, of which approximately 200 are now performed yearly.
The division is actively involved in broad, diverse, comprehensive programs including lung cancer, lung nodule evaluation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), interstitial lung disease, and pulmonary vascular disease.
Education
The division has an outstanding record and reputation for excellence in teaching. Thoracic Division faculty members work side-by-side with residents and fellows and provide a very active ongoing clinical consultation service. In addition, faculty and fellows in the section conduct daily radiology rounds in the surgical and medical intensive care units and also provide radiology services for the neonatal unit.
The faculty participates in an extensive conference schedule, including a weekly interdisciplinary thoracic radiology-pulmonary medicine-thoracic surgery-pathology conference, a weekly interdisciplinary lung cancer conference (thoracic surgery oncology-radiation oncology-pathology), and a monthly interstitial lung disease conference.
Our cardiothoracic fellowship training program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania provides an organized, comprehensive and highly supervised one-year training program in cardiothoracic imaging and chest biopsy procedures to prepare fellows to become future leaders and skilled practitioners in the field. As such, the division coordinates rotations in cardiovascular imaging to provide basic training in cardiac CT and MR imaging.
Research
The division provides rich opportunities to participate in research at either the basic, translational, or clinical levels. It has the distinction of being one of the leading sites for research in pulmonary functional imaging and there is close collaboration with Rahim Rizi, PhD, and his group in the Functional and Metabolic Imaging Group (FMIG), resulting in one of the most active research programs in hyperpolarized gas imaging of the lungs. This research encompasses both animal and human studies of regional pulmonary physiology, including measurements of local ventilation/perfusion ratio, alveolar PO2, and lung mechanics.
Novel imaging techniques have been applied to studies of a variety of lung disorders, including emphysema, asthma, pulmonary embolism, sickle cell disease, and so on. For over a decade, we have hosted successful international workshops in pulmonary functional imaging.
