Badea Cristian T, Bucholz Elizabeth, Hedlund Laurence W, Rockman Howard A, Johnson G Allan
Center for In Vivo Microscopy, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.
Toxicol Pathol. 2006;34(1):111-7. doi: 10.1080/01926230500404126.
Small animal imaging has a critical role in phenotyping, drug discovery, and in providing a basic understanding of mechanisms of disease. Translating imaging methods from humans to small animals is not an easy task. The purpose of this work is to compare two cardiac imaging modalities, i.e., magnetic resonance microscopy (MRM) and microcomputed tomography (CT) for preclinical studies on rodents. We present the two technologies, the parameters that they can measure, the types of alterations that they can detect, and show how these imaging methods compare to techniques available in clinical medicine. While this paper does not refer per se to the cardiac risk assessment for drug or chemical development, we hope that the information will effectively address how MRM and micro-CT might be exploited to measure biomarkers critical for safety assessment.
