WTC Chest CT Imaging Archive

The goal of this proposal is to characterize WTC-related lower airway disorders, and use novel imaging approaches to the investigation of obesity, one of their most important risk factors for poor clinical outcome and chronicity. To that end, the clinical team will utilize the WTC Pulmonary Evaluation Unit Chest CT Imaging Archive, an already established large imaging database, linked to extensive related databases that include disease symptoms, both pre-WTC and WTC-related occupational exposures, detailed pulmonary function and longitudinal spirometry measurements, visual imaging classification and grading, and quantitative computer assisted method (QCAM) measurements of airway, pulmonary parenchymal, pleural, and cardiovascular abnormalities. During the course of the proposed research project, the clinical team will continue to enrich most sources of data with periodic updates, in order to accrue information on the trajectories of the different clinical, functional, and imaging abnormalities observed in this population, and investigate the role of key adverse risk factors directly, and in collaboration with other investigators. In a related project, the research team will focus on COPD, classifying its severity, investigating its diagnostic stability, progression, and transitions, characterize structural abnormalities as assessed by chest CT imaging, and examine the interaction of WTC-related exposure levels with tobacco smoking on increasing the risk of for the disease.