EXPERTS at Southampton University are using advanced 3D X-ray imaging technology to investigate lung disease for the first time.

Doctors and scientists used the specialist scan to better understand the way an aggressive form of lung disease develops in the body.

Now they hope this could transform how such conditions are diagnosed and treated.

Originally designed for analysing substantial engineering parts, such as jet turbine blades, researchers used powerful scanning equipment at Southampton’s µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography.

Southampton researchers successfully used a Microfocus CT to image biopsy samples of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) lung tissue samples for the first time.

Microfocus CT can scan inside objects in great detail – rotating 360 degrees whilst taking thousands of 2D images, which are then used to build detailed 3D images.

This produced a level of detail similar to an optical microscope but now in 3D.

More than 5,000 cases of IPF are diagnosed in the UK each year.

The condition causes inflammation and scarring of the lung tissue, making it increasingly difficult to breathe and giving sufferers a life expectancy of only three to five years.

It is usually diagnosed via a hospital CT scan or by putting a lung biopsy under the microscope.

It had been thought that active scarring in IPF progressed from the outside to the inside of the lung.

Instead, the study revealed that there are large numbers of individual sites of active disease scarring.

The research team, from the National Institute for Health Research Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, believes this finding will help to ensure doctors develop targeted therapies focussing on these areas.

Funded by the Wellcome Trust, the study also involved researchers at the Royal Brompton Hospital, National Jewish Health in Colorado, and University College Dublin.

The Southampton team are now looking at how this technique can help doctors improve diagnosis of such diseases.

The study’s lead author Dr Mark Jones, from the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton, said present tools available made diagnosis of IPF challenging in some cases.

"This technology advance is very exciting as for the first time it gives us the chance to view lung biopsy samples in 3D," he said.

"We think that the new information gained from seeing the lung in 3D has the potential to transform how diseases such as IPF are diagnosed.

"It will also help to increase our understanding of how these scarring lung diseases develop which we hope will ultimately mean better targeted treatments are developed for every patient.”