Stephens S E, Ingels N B, Wenk J F, Jensen M O
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States of America.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America.
Exp Mech. 2022 Jun;62(5):879-884. doi: 10.1007/s11340-022-00825-x. Epub 2022 Jan 25.
The use of 3D imaging is becoming increasingly common, so too is the use of fiducial markers to identify/track regions of interest and assess material deformation. While many different materials have been used as fiducials, they are often used in isolation, with little comparison to one another.
In the current study, we aim to directly compare different Computed Tomography (CT and μCT) fiducial materials, both metallic and nonmetallic.
μCT imaging was performed on a soft-tissue structure, in this case heart valve tissue, with various markers attached. Additionally, we evaluated the same markers with DiceCT stained tissue in a fluid medium. Eight marker materials were tested in all.
All of the metallic markers generated significant artifacts and were found unsuitable for soft-tissue μCT imaging, whereas alumina markers were found to perform the best, with excellent contrast and consistency.
These findings support the further use of alumina as fiducial markers for soft material and tissue studies that utilize CT and μCT imaging.
3D成像的应用越来越普遍，使用基准标记来识别/跟踪感兴趣区域并评估材料变形的情况也是如此。虽然许多不同的材料已被用作基准，但它们通常是单独使用，相互之间很少进行比较。
在本研究中，我们旨在直接比较不同的计算机断层扫描（CT和μCT）基准材料，包括金属和非金属材料。
对附着有各种标记的软组织结构（在本案例中为心脏瓣膜组织）进行μCT成像。此外，我们在流体介质中用DiceCT染色组织评估相同的标记。总共测试了八种标记材料。
所有金属标记都产生了明显的伪影，被发现不适合软组织μCT成像，而氧化铝标记表现最佳，具有出色的对比度和一致性。
这些发现支持进一步将氧化铝用作利用CT和μCT成像的软材料和组织研究的基准标记。
