UK Biobank pilot imaging enhancement

在英国生物库，从50万名年龄在40-69岁的男性和女性中收集了问卷数据、体格测量和生物样本，目前正在长期跟踪他们的健康状况。像英国生物库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，这类研究需要规模较大，因为只有相对较小比例的参与者会患上任何特定的疾病。现在，它计划对10万名英国生物库参与者的大脑、心脏、大血管、腹部、骨骼和关节进行专门的成像。尽管在其他一些研究中也进行了成像，但这些研究只涉及少数人(通常不到5000人)，并专注于对身体的特定部位进行成像。相比之下，将10万名英国生物库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结合起来，将为来自世界各地的研究人员提供一个独特的资源，以调查不同疾病的原因。(例如，痴呆症可能不仅与大脑的成像措施有关，还与身体其他部位的成像措施有关，也可能与遗传、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.)