Abstract
Small animal models are widely used to study various pathologies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows investigation of these animals in a non-invasive way. Therefore, the aim of our study was to develop and evaluate a low-cost approach to measure lung volumes in small animal MRI using a clinical scanner and a specially designed RF coil. Five mice (three of an established emphysema model and two controls) were investigated in a 1.0-T clinical scanner using a specially built small animal saddle coil and three different three-dimensional sequences; overall imaging time was approximately 16 min. Lung volumes were calculated from these images using an interactive watershed transform algorithm for semi-automatic image segmentation. The gold standard for the volume measurement was water displacement after surgical explantation. MRI measured volumes correlated significantly with ex vivo measurements on the explanted lungs (r = 0.99 to 0.89; p < 0.05). Mean lung volume in emphysema model mice was larger than in controls. High-resolution, small animal MRI using a clinical scanner is feasible for volumetric analysis and provides an alternative to a dedicated small animal scanner.
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Heverhagen, J., Hahn, H., Wegmann, M. et al. Volumetric analysis of mice lungs in a clinical magnetic resonance imaging scanner. MAGMA 17, 80–85 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-004-0053-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-004-0053-9