Liu Xue-Huan, Yin Hong-Xia, Zhu Hua, Wang Zhen-Tian, Zhao Peng-Fei, Lv Han, Ding He-Yu, Li Jing, Zhang Peng, Wang Zheng, Wang Peng, Wang Zhen-Chang
Department of Radiology, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Comparative Medical Center, Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) & Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Medical Science (CAMS), Beijing, China.
Microsc Res Tech. 2018 Jun;81(6):655-662. doi: 10.1002/jemt.23020. Epub 2018 Mar 23.
The retina is one of the most tiny and sophisticated tissues of the body. Three dimensional (3D) visualization of the whole retina is valuable both in clinical and research arenas. The tissue has been predominantly assessed by time-consuming histopathology and optical coherence tomography (OCT) in research and clinical arenas. However, none of the two methods can provide 3D imaging of the retina. The purpose of this study is to give a volumetric visualization of rat retina at submicron resolution, using an emerging imaging technique-phase-contrast X-ray CT. A Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat eye specimen was scanned with X-ray differential phase contrast tomographic microscopy (DPC-microCT) equipped at the Swiss Light Source synchrotron. After scanning, the specimen was subjected to routine histology procedures and severed as a reference. The morphological characteristics and signal features of the retina in the DPC-microCT images were evaluated. The total retina and its sublayers thicknesses were measured on the DPC-microCT images and compared with those obtained from the histological sections. The retina structures revealed by DPC-microCT were highly consistent with the histological section. In this study, we achieved nondestructive 3D visualization of SD rat retina. In addition to detailed anatomical structures, the objective parameters provided by DPC-microCT make it a useful tool for retinal research and disease diagnosis in the early stage.
视网膜是人体最微小且复杂的组织之一。对整个视网膜进行三维（3D）可视化在临床和研究领域都具有重要价值。在研究和临床领域，该组织主要通过耗时的组织病理学和光学相干断层扫描（OCT）进行评估。然而，这两种方法都无法提供视网膜的3D成像。本研究的目的是使用一种新兴的成像技术——相衬X射线计算机断层扫描，以亚微米分辨率对大鼠视网膜进行体积可视化。用瑞士光源同步加速器配备的X射线微分相衬断层显微镜（DPC - microCT）对一只斯普拉格 - 道利（SD）大鼠的眼部标本进行扫描。扫描后，将标本进行常规组织学处理并切断作为参考。评估DPC - microCT图像中视网膜的形态特征和信号特征。在DPC - microCT图像上测量整个视网膜及其各层的厚度，并与组织学切片获得的厚度进行比较。DPC - microCT揭示的视网膜结构与组织学切片高度一致。在本研究中，我们实现了对SD大鼠视网膜的无损3D可视化。除了详细的解剖结构外，DPC - microCT提供的客观参数使其成为视网膜研究和早期疾病诊断的有用工具。
