Departemet Cell and Molecular Biology, Leibniz-Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Hans-Knöll-Institute, Beutenbergstr. 11a, 07745, Jena, Germany.
Friedrich Schiller University, Fürstengraben 1, 07743, Jena, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2017 May 22;7(1):2217. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-02389-6.
The assessment of bone damage is required to evaluate disease severity and treatment efficacy both in arthritis patients and in experimental arthritis models. Today there is still a lack of in vivo methods that enable the quantification of arthritic processes at an early stage of the disease. We performed longitudinal in vivo imaging with [F]-fluoride PET/CT before and after experimental arthritis onset for diseased and control DBA/1 mice and assessed arthritis progression by clinical scoring, tracer uptake studies and bone volume as well as surface roughness measurements. Arthritic animals showed significantly increased tracer uptake in the paws compared to non-diseased controls. Automated CT image analysis revealed increased bone surface roughness already in the earliest stage of the disease. Moreover, we observed clear differences between endosteal and periosteal sites of cortical bone regarding surface roughness. This study shows that in vivo PET/CT imaging is a favorable method to study arthritic processes, enabling the quantification of different aspects of the disease like pathological bone turnover and bone alteration. Especially the evaluation of bone surface roughness is sensitive to early pathological changes and can be applied to study the dynamics of bone erosion at different sites of the bones in an automated fashion.
骨损伤评估对于评估关节炎患者和实验性关节炎模型中的疾病严重程度和治疗效果都是必需的。目前，仍然缺乏能够在疾病早期定量关节炎过程的体内方法。我们在实验性关节炎发病前后对患病和对照 DBA/1 小鼠进行了[F]-氟化物 PET/CT 纵向活体成像，并通过临床评分、示踪剂摄取研究以及骨体积和表面粗糙度测量来评估关节炎进展。与未患病对照相比，关节炎动物的爪子中的示踪剂摄取明显增加。自动 CT 图像分析显示，在疾病的最早阶段就出现了骨表面粗糙度的增加。此外，我们观察到皮质骨的骨内和骨外部位的骨表面粗糙度存在明显差异。这项研究表明，体内 PET/CT 成像 是一种研究关节炎过程的有利方法，能够定量评估疾病的不同方面，如病理性骨转换和骨改变。特别是骨表面粗糙度的评估对早期病理变化敏感，可用于以自动化方式研究不同部位骨侵蚀的动态。
