The COPDGene® CT Imaging Workshop was held February 2-5, 2010 at the new American College of Radiology Learning Center in Reston, Virginia. The ACR Learning Center housed a 75 TB server, a Fuji PACS system for image review, and 59 individual workstations.
The goal of this workshop was to reach a consensus on how to qualitatively read chest CT scans for COPD subphenotypes including extent and severity of emphysema and airway disease. It begin with a group of standard images illustrating different patterns and extent of disease. The images were read for elements such as the following: emphysema pattern (centrilobular, panlobular, paraseptal, bullae), emphysema extent (by lobe and region), large airway disease (saber sheath trachea, tracheabronchiomalacia, bronchiectasis, etc.), airway wall thickening of fourth to sixth generation airways, and small airways disease (micronodular opacities, mosaic pattern, gas trapping on expiratory scan).
To prepare for this workshop 350 CT scans were randomly selected from the COPDGene® cohort with 50 scans each from smokers with GOLD 0 to 4 and GOLD U plus 50 non-smoking controls. For each of these scans clinical phenotype data, the results of computer readings of extent and severity of emphysema, gas trapping and airway wall thickness and genomic data were available (after the blind qualitative readings are completed). In addition, we had 50 CT scans from alpha-1 antitrypsin subjects ranging from very early to severe disease. This gave us a total of 400 CT scans representing 8 groups with 50 CT scans per group.
To date, four abstracts and one educational presentation have been submitted to the 2010 RSNA meeting as a result of this collective effort.
Our lead sponsor for this workshop was the COPD Foundation. The Foundation underwrites the initiation of this workshop and has worked with us to raise funding to cover the cost of using the ACR Learning Center as well as covering some of the travel expenses by participants.
