UK Biobank pilot imaging enhancement

在英国生物银行，收集了50万名年龄在40-69岁之间的男性和女性的问卷数据、体格测量和生物样本，并对他们的健康状况进行了长期跟踪。像UK Biobank这样的前瞻性队列可以可靠地评估许多不同暴露与许多不同疾病发展的相关性。然而，这类研究的规模必须很大，因为只有相对较小比例的参与者会患上某种特定疾病。目前计划对10万名英国生物银行参与者的大脑、心脏、大血管、腹部、骨骼和关节进行专门成像。尽管在其他一些研究中也使用了成像技术，但这些研究只涉及少数人（通常少于5000人），而且主要是对身体的特定部位进行成像。相比之下，将来自10万名英国生物银行参与者身体不同部位的成像数据与已经收集的详细非成像数据相结合，将为来自世界各地的研究人员调查不同疾病的原因提供独特的资源。（例如，痴呆症可能不仅与大脑的成像测量有关，还与身体其他部位的成像测量有关，还与遗传、生化或环境信息有关。）

In UK Biobank, questionnaire data, physical measurements and biological samples have been collected from 500,000 men and women aged 40-69, and their health is now being followed long-term. A prospective cohort like UK Biobank allows reliable assessment of the relevance of many different exposures to the development of many different diseases. However, such studies need to be big because only a relatively small proportion of participants will develop any particular disease. It is now planned to conduct specialised imaging of the brain, heart, large blood vessels, abdomen, bone and joints in 100,000 UK Biobank participants. Although imaging has been done in some other studies, these have involved only small numbers of people (typically less than 5,000) and have focussed on imaging particular parts of the body. By contrast, combination of imaging data from different parts of the body in 100,000 UK Biobank participants with the detailed non-imaging data already collected will provide a unique resource for researchers from around the world to investigate the causes of different diseases. (For example, dementia may be related to imaging measures not only from the brain but also from other parts of the body, as well as to genetic, biochemical or environmental information.)