With the incidence of respiratory diseases increasing throughout the world, new therapies are needed.
This review provides a short overview of different imaging techniques of interest for drug discovery and development within the pulmonary disease area. The focus is on studies performed both in animals and humans, which are of importance to understand pathophysiological aspects and to evaluate new drugs. Rather than emphasizing particular lung diseases, the non-invasive diagnosis and quantification of a number of characteristics related to several pathological conditions of the lung are addressed: inflammation, mucus secretion and clearance, emphysema, ventilation, perfusion, fibrosis, airway remodeling, and pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Techniques are discussed based on their present use or potential future utilization in the context of drug studies.
