Lung MRI as a potential complementary diagnostic tool for early COPD

Many knowledge gaps in the nature of early Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) still exist, mainly because COPD has always been considered a disease of the elderly. Little attention has been paid to the pathologic changes in the lungs of young adults with risk factors for COPD, such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia. One major limitation is the current lack of non-invasive ways to sensitively measure and/or image functional declines from subjects who are at risk for COPD but haven’t yet developed more significant clinical symptoms of the disease.  We report the use of lung magnetic resonance (MRI) with hyperpolarized gas in the identification of lung abnormalities in a patient with bronchopulmonary dysplasia with underlying chronic airflow limitation, who meets the spirometry criteria for early-onset COPD.