From X-Ray to 3D: Quantifying Lung Injury in an Infant with Severe Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in preterm neonates is frequently defined clinically by oxygen requirement and the need for ventilatory support. However, this bedside definition does not fully capture the profound structural heterogeneity that develops over time in infants with severe disease. In particular, survivors who remain hospitalized for prolonged periods of time may develop highly compartmentalized lung injury, with alternating areas of hyperinflation, atelectasis and inflammatory remodeling. In these cases, conventional imaging like X-Ray can confirm chronic lung disease but cannot quantify how much functional lung remains or how uneven the disease burden is regionally. We present a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) survivor with severe BPD who underwent CT-based 3D segmentation at 8 months of chronological age to quantify lung disease compartment burden, with the purpose of demonstrating how this technique provides objective phenotyping and clinical insight beyond conventional imaging in severe BPD.