CT of the Airways

Imaging of the airways is a fascinating undertaking and, if done expertly, a true art in medicine. Over the past years, imaging of the airways has become ever more exciting and demanding, as new therapies in pulmonary medicine have become available that require careful imaging assessment of patients to aid management and monitor therapeutic success. The increasing importance of imaging in pulmonary medicine is accompanied by a surge of revolutionary developments in imaging technology that enable ever finer assessment of lung structure and function. No modality has seen more rapid innovation over the last decade than computed tomography. Current multidetector-row CT technology makes high-resolution imaging of the chest with a spatial resolution of a couple of 100 m in a matter of mere seconds. Ever more sophisticated post-processing applications enable intuitive, quantitative assessment of lung structure and function in an efficient manner, so that these technologies are increasingly embraced in mainstream medicine to improve patient care. CT of the Airways, which was so expertly assembled by my dear friends Phil Boiselle and David Lynch, is one of the very first tomes that pays tribute to our new found prowess in airway imaging.