The main area of research in my PhD thesis is heart failure and pulmonary congestion. In heart failure, the heart is unable to pump effectively in order to satisfy the demands of the body. The elevated filling pressure seen in patients with heart failure leads to accumulation of fluid in the lungs, which is pulmonary congestion. My research is divided in 2 parts.

Part 1: While investigation with chest X-ray is recommended according to guidelines, it has limitations in detecting pulmonary congestion. Therefore, there is a need of novel and non-invasive diagnostic methods in the diagnosis of pulmonary congestion in heart failure.

Ventilation/perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (V/P SPECT), i.e tomographic lung scintigraphy, is a promising method to diagnose and quantify pulmonary congestion in heart failure. However, this method needs to be validated by invasive right-heart catheterization.  

Part 2: The variation of the blood volume in the pulmonary circulation, measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may also have the potential to quantify the severity of heart failure.

It has previously been measured and quantified in pigs following acute myocardial infarction, but never in a clinical setting in patients with heart failure

The methods that I studied in my thesis were V/P SPECT (which was validated against invasive right-heart catheterization) and MRI. These methods were used to diagnose and quantify pulmonary congestion and variation of the pulmonary blood flow in patients with heart failure, and to follow-up pulmonary congestion.