Sastra Stephen A, Olive Kenneth P
Herbery Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2013;980:249-66. doi: 10.1007/978-1-62703-287-2_13.
Ultrasonography is a powerful imaging modality that enables noninvasive, real-time visualization of abdominal organs and tissues. This technology may be adapted for use in mice through the utilization of higher frequency transducers, allowing for extremely high-resolution imaging of the mouse pancreas. This technique is particularly well suited to pancreas imaging due to the ultrasonographic properties of the normal mouse pancreas, easily accessible imaging planes for the head and tail of the mouse pancreas, and the comparative difficulty in imaging the mouse pancreas with other technologies. A suite of measurement tools is available to characterize the normal and diseased states of tissues. Of particular utility for cancer applications is the ability to use tomography to construct a 3D tumor volume, enabling longitudinal imaging studies to track tumor development, or response to therapies. Here, we describe a detailed method for performing high-resolution ultrasound to detect and measure pancreatic lesions in a genetically engineered mouse model of pancreatic ductal using the VisualSonics Vevo2100 High Resolution Ultrasound System. The method includes preparation of the animal for imaging, 2D and 3D image acquisition, and post-acquisition analysis of tumor volumes. The combined procedure has been utilized extensively by our group and others for the preclinical evaluation of novel therapeutic agents in the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (Olive et al., Science 324:1457-1461, 2009; Cook et al., Methods Enzymol 439:73-85, 2008; Singh et al., Nat Biotechnol 28:585-593, 2010; Beatty et al., Science 331:1612-1616, 2011).
超声检查是一种强大的成像方式，能够对腹部器官和组织进行非侵入性实时可视化。通过使用更高频率的换能器，这项技术可适用于小鼠，从而实现对小鼠胰腺的极高分辨率成像。由于正常小鼠胰腺的超声特性、小鼠胰腺头部和尾部易于获取的成像平面以及用其他技术对小鼠胰腺成像相对困难，这项技术特别适合胰腺成像。有一套测量工具可用于表征组织的正常和患病状态。对于癌症应用特别有用的是能够使用断层扫描构建三维肿瘤体积，从而进行纵向成像研究以跟踪肿瘤发展或对治疗的反应。在此，我们描述一种使用VisualSonics Vevo2100高分辨率超声系统在胰腺导管基因工程小鼠模型中进行高分辨率超声检测和测量胰腺病变的详细方法。该方法包括动物成像准备、二维和三维图像采集以及采集后肿瘤体积分析。我们小组和其他人员已广泛使用该联合程序对治疗胰腺导管腺癌的新型治疗药物进行临床前评估（Olive等人，《科学》324:1457 - 1461，2009；Cook等人，《酶学方法》439:73 - 85，2008；Singh等人，《自然生物技术》28:585 - 593，2010；Beatty等人，《科学》331:1612 - 1616，2011）。
