HomepageResearch Interests:
- Radiological investigations of infectious diseases in immunocompromized patients
- Longitudinal analyses of functional and morphological imaging to complement histology/molecular-biology in solid tumours
- Computer assisted quantitative image analyses of lung tissue and airway morphology and function
Short CV
| 1986 | Medical School, Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz |
| 1993 | Resident, obligatory clinical course, department of Hematology/Oncology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz |
| 1994 | Dissertation (M.D.), Medicinal Clinic of Endocrinology, Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz |
| 1994 | Resident, department of Radiology, Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz |
| 1999 | Postdoc, department of Radiology, Johannes-Gutenberg University |
| 2002 | Spokesmen for lung working group on functional MRI, Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz |
| 2003 | Assistant Professor, department of Radiology, Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz |
| 2009 | Special Professor for Radiology at the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg |
Honours & Awards
| 2003 | European Society of Radiology: Ultrafast ³He-MRT for dynamic analysis of distribution of ventilation |
| 2003 | Robert-Müller research award for cand. med. C. Buschsieweke: “Automatic quantification of diffuse interstitial lung disease in multislice CT“ |
| 2005 | European Society of Radiology: Fluorinated gasses for measurement of pulmonary ventilation in 19F-MRI |
| 2008 | INI-GraphicsNet Best Paper Award „Segmentation and Navigation Support of Clinical Data Sets to Simulate the Bronchoscopy and Rhinoscopy“ |
| 2012 | Felix-Wachsmann-Prize of the German Academy of Continuous Education in Radiology. |
| 2012 | ASPIRE MOULD Prize: “Retrospective Interdisciplinary Multicentre Analysis of Fungal Pneumonia in Children” |
Memberships/Committee Assignments
| 2010-2016 | Chairman of the Chest Radiology Directors Board of the German Roentgen Society |
| Faculty member of the European Society of Thoracic Radiology (ESTI) | |
| Founder member and radiological consultant of the working team in infections in immunocompromized hosts of the German society of Hematology/Oncology | |
| Radiological consultant of the European Conference on Infections in Leukaemia (ECIL) | |
| Editor of Medizinische Klinik, Intensivmedizin und Notfallmedizin, Springer Publishing |
Projects
- One of our long-running projects is concerned with the early detection and characterization of mainly pulmonary infections in immunocompromized patients. Imaging provides important data and expertise for overall case assessment and our treatment successes in dealing with acute cases is based on the close co-operation with the Hematology and Nephrology Departments of Heidelberg University.
- Regional functional lung imaging is more sensitive to detection of lung impairment in COPD, asthma or pulmonary fibrosis than global lung function analysis. Furthermore, targeted treatment strategies require regional disease assessment and ideally, quantification of damaged lung parenchyma. Therefore, our work focuses on optimizing regional distribution of perfusion and ventilation (DZL) in real-time imaging using different techniques such as CT and MRI (1H, 3He, 19F). The results are matched with morphological information reflecting the underlying anatomical structure. It is our goal to determine the extent of the disease or remaining functioning amount of lung parenchyma with an automated fully unattended process. This goal has already been achieved in cases of emphysema and global airway quantification.
- Our imaging data contributes to the bronchial carcinoma-projects (DZL) and systems biology projects (Lungsys; DKFZ). Imaging delivers comparative data for early-response evaluation and long-term response to treatment. We also apply invasive procedures for longitudinal assessment of histology / molecular-biology in BC and its metastasis.
Team
Consultants
Dr. Monika Eichinger
Prof. Dr. Maria-Katharina Ganten
Dr. med. Daiva-Elzbieta Optazaite 
E-Mail
Assistant Physicians
Dr. med. Inge Alvarez E-Mail
Dr. med. Josef Kunz E-Mail
Selected Publications
COPD:
- Gompelmann D, Hofbauer T, Gerovasili V, Eberhardt R, Lim HJ, Herth F, Heussel CP. Predictors of clinical outcome in emphysema patients with atelectasis following endoscopic valve therapy: A retrospective study. Respirology. 2016 Oct;21(7):1255-61
- Lim HJ, Weinheimer O, Wielpütz MO, Dinkel J, Hielscher T, Gompelmann D, Kauczor HU, Heussel CP. Fully Automated Pulmonary Lobar Segmentation: Influence of Different Prototype Software Programs onto Quantitative Evaluation of Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease. PLoS One. 2016 Mar 30;11(3)
- Pusterla O, Bauman G, Wielpütz MO, Nyilas S, Latzin P, Heussel CP, Bieri O. Rapid 3D in vivo 1H human lung respiratory imaging at 1.5 T using ultra-fast balanced steady-state free precession. Magn Reson Med. 2016 Oct 23
BC:
- Rieber J, Deeg A, Ullrich E, Foerster R, Bischof M, Warth A, Schnabel PA, Muley T, Kappes J, Heussel CP, Welzel T, Thomas M, Steins M, Dienemann H, Debus J, Hoffmann H, Rieken S. Outcome and prognostic factors of postoperative radiation therapy (PORT) after incomplete resection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Lung Cancer. 2016 Jan;91:41-7
- Rieber J, Schmitt J, Warth A, Muley T, Kappes J, Eichhorn F, Hoffmann H, Heussel CP, Welzel T, Debus J, Thomas M, Steins M, Rieken S. Outcome and prognostic factors of multimodal therapy for pulmonary large-cell neuroendocrine carcinomas. Eur J Med Res. 2015 Aug 14;20:64
- Safi S, Rauch G, op den Winkel J, Kunz J, Schneider T, Bischof M, Heussel CP, Huber PE, Herth FJ, Dienemann H, Hoffmann H. Sublobar Resection, Radiofrequency Ablation or Radiotherapy in Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Respiration. 2015;89(6):550-7
Pneumonie:
- Boch T, Reinwald M, Postina P, Cornely OA, Vehreschild JJ, Heußel CP, Heinz WJ, Hoenigl M, Eigl S, Lehrnbecher T, Hahn J, Claus B, Lauten M, Egerer G, Müller MC, Will S, Merker N, Hofmann WK, Buchheidt D, Spiess B. Identification of invasive fungal diseases in immunocompromised patients by combining an Aspergillus specific PCR with a multifungal DNA-microarray from primary clinical samples. Mycoses. 2015 Dec;58(12):735-45
- Loeffler J, Hafner J, Mengoli C, Wirth C, Heussel CP, Löffler C, White PL, Ullmann AJ, Michel D, Wiegering V, Wölfl M, Schlegel PG, Einsele H, Springer J, Eyrich M. Prospective biomarker screening for the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis in high-risk paediatric patients. J Clin Microbiol. 2016 Oct 19. pii: JCM.01682-16. [Epub ahead of print]
