The Lung Tissue Research Consortium: An extensive open database containing histological, clinical, and radiological data to study chronic lung disease

The Lung Tissue Research Consortium (LTRC) is an NHLBI sponsored project which is studying histological, radiological, and clinical data on patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). At completion, over 1200 subjects will be enrolled. Each subject will have a minimum of one CT scan; however, many will likely have 3 CT scans. Each scan will have a corresponding radiological report, clinical report, and histological report. The NHLBI requires that the data collected through the LTRC be anonymized and available to independent researchers. The LTRC imaging database will be the most comprehensive database of lung CT data available to date and will serve as the basis for imaging studies of chronic lung disease for years to come. It is a significant opportunity for the medical image analysis community to investigate this database with the intent to develop new methods of registration, segmentation, and classification that may be used to diagnosis and treat patients with diffuse lung disease.