A new AI tool called Vascul8 has been proven to help in the treatment of lung vascular disorders, according to a recent study. This AI-powered tool can predict how severe a lung disease is and identify patients who might still have high blood pressure in their lungs after surgery. This high blood pressure, called pulmonary hypertension (PH), can happen after surgery for a condition called chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH), which is caused by persistent blood clots in the lung arteries. The surgery to treat CTEPH is called pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA). Currently, doctors use a procedure called right heart catheterisation to check for residual PH, which is invasive and expensive. Vascul8 can help reduce the need for this procedure by accurately screening patients using routine CT scans. Joanna Pepke-Zaba, a consultant physician at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the lead author of the study, said, ‘CTEPH has always been complex to manage, requiring the expertise of multiple specialists. We are excited to have worked on this study showing an alternative approach to imaging CTEPH and managing patients using Qureight’s imaging analysis model, Vascul8. This is a big step forward in using imaging for severe and complex respiratory and vascular diseases.’ Hakim Ghani, a research fellow and the first author of the study, explained, ‘Vascul8 can automatically measure lung blood volumes from CT scans to identify patients with chronic blood clots who are still at risk of residual pulmonary hypertension after surgery. This AI-driven approach could lead to better treatment decisions, more personalised care, fewer invasive tests, and new ways to measure outcomes in clinical trials, ultimately benefiting patients.’ Simon Walsh, the Chief Scientific Officer at Qureight, added, ‘This study shows the potential of our deep-learning vascular biomarkers and demonstrates that our imaging platform can be used beyond fibrotic lung disease, in pulmonary vascular disorders like CTEPH.’