Citation Details

Journal Article

OsteoSense, Animals; Bone Remodeling; Disease Models, Animal; Equipment Design; Female; Fluorescence; Head and Neck Neoplasms/pathology/radiography; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/*methods; Lung Neoplasms/pathology/radiography; Mammary Neoplasms, Experimental/pathology/radiography; Mice; Osteogenesis Imperfecta/pathology/radiography; Tomography, Optical/*methods; Tomography, X-Ray Computed/*methods

The development of hybrid optical tomography methods to improve imaging performance has been suggested over a decade ago and has been experimentally demonstrated in animals and humans. Here we examined in vivo performance of a camera-based hybrid fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) system for 360 degrees imaging combined with X-ray computed tomography (XCT). Offering an accurately co-registered, information-rich hybrid data set, FMT-XCT has new imaging possibilities compared to stand-alone FMT and XCT. We applied FMT-XCT to a subcutaneous 4T1 tumor mouse model, an Aga2 osteogenesis imperfecta model and a Kras lung cancer mouse model, using XCT information during FMT inversion. We validated in vivo imaging results against post-mortem planar fluorescence images of cryoslices and histology data. Besides offering concurrent anatomical and functional information, FMT-XCT resulted in the most accurate FMT performance to date. These findings indicate that addition of FMT optics into the XCT gantry may be a potent upgrade for small-animal XCT systems.