• Yukiko Matsuura, Naoko Kawata, Noriyuki Yanagawa, Toshihiko Sugiura, Yoriko Sakurai, Misuzu Sato, Ken Iesato, Jiro Terada, Seiichiro Sakao, Yuji Tada, Nobuhiro Tanabe, Yoichi Suzuki, and Koichiro Tatsumi.
• Department of Respirology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba 260-8670 Japan. matsuyuki_future@yahoo.co.jp
• Eur J Radiol. 2013 Oct 1;82(10):1804-10.

ObjectivesStructural and functional changes in pulmonary vessels are prevalent at the initial stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). These vascular alterations can be assessed using cross-sectional area (CSA) of small pulmonary vessels. However, neither in non-COPD smokers nor in COPD patients it has been defined whether the structural changes of pulmonary vessels detected by paired inspiratory and expiratory CT scans are associated with emphysematous changes. We quantified the CSA and low attenuation area (LAA) and evaluated the changes in these parameters in the inspiratory and expiratory phases.Materials And MethodsFifty consecutive non-COPD smokers and COPD patients were subjected to multi detector-row CT and the percentage of vessels with a CSA less than 5 mm(2) as well as the percentage LAA for total lung area (%CSA<5, %LAA, respectively) were calculated.ResultsThe %CSA<5 correlated negatively with %LAA. The %CSA<5 was lower in COPD patients with emphysema as compared with non-COPD smokers and COPD patients with or without mild emphysema. In addition, the %CSA<5 was lower in the no/mild emphysema subgroup as compared with non-COPD smokers. The respiratory phase change of %CSA<5 in COPD patients was greater than that in non-COPD smokers.ConclusionThe percentage of small pulmonary vessels decreased as emphysematous changes increase, and this decrease was observed even in patients with no/mild emphysema. Furthermore, respiratory phase changes in CSA were higher in COPD patients than in non-COPD smokers.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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