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July 31, 2025

Hourly readouts monitor lung changes in bedridden patients

Method could spot fluid buildup early without exposing patient to typical imaging radiation

4
A newly developed method could be used to measure physical changes in a patient's lungs as a function of time using cosmic ray muons that reach the Earth’s surface. Credit to: Dreamstime

A Los Alamos-led collaboration has demonstrated that cosmic ray muons can image a human body with sufficient precision to detect pneumonia in someone’s lungs. Such a system could continuously monitor hospitalized, bedridden patients using only background radiation.

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Why this matters: Early detection of lung inflammation can support better health outcomes, but computed tomography scans and conventional radiographs aren’t feasible for continuous patient monitoring. Naturally occurring cosmic ray muons offer penetrating — yet harmless — radiation. 

What to know: If muon trackers were placed above and below the patient, tomographs could be constructed using the scattering of cosmic rays. Medical practitioners could monitor density changes in a patient’s lungs with hourly readouts.

 

Mini Muon Tracker
In their exploratory work, scientists used data collected with the Los Alamos Mini Muon Tracker (pictured) to examine a human phantom. A thinner system with better resolution would need to be developed to examine real humans. Credit: Christopher Morris et al., Journal of Applied Physics, CC BY 4.0

 

How they did it: The Los Alamos Mini Muon Tracker at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) collected data to examine a human phantom (a radiographic representation of a body that has been used to measure radiation doses in space).

  • The team developed a simple cosmic ray flux model with muon trackers optimized for examining humans, and they produced lung images with a 24-hour exposure.
  • They calculated how thinner detectors could provide higher-quality images in considerably shorter exposure times with better signal to noise.

Funding: Los Alamos Laboratory Directed Research and Development program

LA-UR-25-27361

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