DACI
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Dynamic chest radiography in patients with Asthma, COPD, COVID-19 and ILD: a pilot study
IRAS ID
269685
Contact name
Hassan Burhan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Liverpool University Hospital
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 1 days
Research summary
A chest X-ray is often the first test patients with breathlessness have. It can often be normal if the patient has a disease that affects the way the lungs ‘move’ rather than ‘look’. Information about breathing requires additional breathing tests.
The aim of this study is to investigate the use of new X-ray technology, Dynamic Chest Radiography (DCR) that allows several X-rays to be taken while a patient breathes. This provides a ‘film’ showing the way that patients’ chests move while they breathe in addition to the ‘snap-shot’ information that a conventional chest X-ray provides about how their lungs, heart and rib cages ‘look’. DCR can therefore provide a combination of information about both the structure of the lungs and how air is moving through the airways during breathing.
We plan to ask three groups of patients with diseases that affect the way they breathe (COPD, asthma and interstitial lung disease) attending specialist clinics whether they would be willing to have DCR in addition to detailed breathing test results their doctor has requested. We aim to find out if patients find the test acceptable and to compare patients’ DCR and detailed breathing test results.
The test (DCR) involves a patient standing in front of an X-ray machine for 10 seconds while taking normal and then deep breaths. The process is then repeated with the patient standing side-on to the X-ray machine. Participants will be asked to complete a visual scale after the test to see how acceptable it is to them. The information from the DCR images will be compared with the detailed breathing tests to see how well the information gained matches.
With regards to safety, DCR uses the same technology as a conventional chest X-ray but allows many more X-rays to be taken with a slight increase in radiation dose. Taking the DCR images for this study involves a small radiation dose which is the equivalent of around 4 week’s additional background radiation exposure. This is significantly less than a CT scan, the test requested by respiratory specialists for patients with these diseases.
In future this technique has the potential to become a first line investigation for breathlessness especially in patients who would struggle to perform more conventional breathing tests like spirometry.
REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/WM/0032
Date of REC Opinion
5 Feb 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion