A microcomputed tomography guided fluorescence tomography system for small animal molecular imaging

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging
• Preclinical Research

Background:

• Multimodality imaging offers synergistic information for complex biological studies.
• Integrating fluorescence tomography (FT) with x-ray microcomputed tomography (microCT) can improve spatial resolution and functional information.
• Existing systems may lack the sensitivity or integration needed for detailed preclinical cancer research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a prototype small animal imaging system coupling FT with microCT.
• To leverage microCT images as prior spatial information for FT.
• To enable overlay of FT images onto microCT images for comprehensive analysis.

Main Methods:

• Designed a noncontact FT system utilizing single photon counting for maximal sensitivity.
• Employed five parallel detector locations for simultaneous fluorescence and transmitted excitation signal sampling.
• Conducted calibration, linearity tests, and phantom studies, including imaging protoporphyrin IX.

Main Results:

• The prototype system successfully integrated FT and microCT.
• Phantom studies demonstrated the system's calibration and linearity performance.
• The system is validated for in vivo use to image endogenous protoporphyrin IX, a tumor marker.

Conclusions:

• The developed multimodality imaging system provides synergistic information for preclinical cancer research.
• The system is ready for in vivo application, particularly for studying tumor microenvironments and treatment efficacy.
• This technology holds significant potential for advancing cancer therapeutics research.