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Recently, high-resolution X-ray microtomography (micro-CT) has become a promising technique for imaging the inner anatomy of small laboratory animals [1–3]. The major advantage of micro-CT is that visualization is fully noninvasive. In biomedical research, micro-CT has been applied mainly for studying bones [4,5] and other calcified tissues [6,7].
A new, interesting challenge for X-ray micro-CT is visualization of soft tissues in organs such as the lungs. Previously, analysis of lungs has been reported in humans using clinical CT [8–11]. In small laboratory animals, there is an urgent need for a high-spatial-resolution, noninvasive visualization of the lungs. Therefore, the question was raised as to whether micro-CT can be effective as a diagnostic tool for detecting lung tumors at the earliest possible stage in live mice. Up to now, detection of these tumors has required sacrifice of the mice for histologic examination and/or sectioning and microscopic observation, which are both destructive and time-consuming procedures.
In the present study, live mice suffering from lung tumors, induced by an injection of the carcinogenic agent urethane [12], were studied by X-ray micro-CT.
The diseased lung tissue could be distinguished from normal soft tissue in the micro-CT pictures both at an early stage and a more advanced stage of tumor development. A good correlation was found between data from micro-CT and visual inspection of the excised lungs as well as after microscopic observation of histologic sections. These noninvasive imaging possibilities by micro-CT allow longitudinal studies of tumor development and progression, and open interesting perspectives for the evaluation of drug treatment of lung tumors. Other Sections▼
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