Integration of High-Resolution Radiation Detector for Hybrid Microchip Electrophoresis.

For decades, there has been immense progress in miniaturizing analytical methods based on electrophoresis to improve sensitivity and to reduce sample volumes, separation times, and/or equipment cost and space requirements, in applications ranging from analysis of biological samples to environmental analysis to forensics. In the field of radiochemistry, where radiation-shielded laboratory space is limited, there has been great interest in harnessing the compactness, high efficiency, and speed of microfluidics to synthesize short-lived radiolabeled compounds. We recently proposed that analysis of these compounds could also benefit from miniaturization and have been investigating capillary electrophoresis (CE) and hybrid microchip electrophoresis (hybrid-MCE) as alternatives to the typically used high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). We previously showed separation of the positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging tracer 3'-deoxy-3'-fluorothymidine (FLT) from its impurities in a hybrid-MCE device with UV detection, with similar separation performance to HPLC, but with improved speed and lower sample volumes. In this paper, we have developed an integrated radiation detector to enable measurement of the emitted radiation from radiolabeled compounds. Though conventional radiation detectors have been incorporated into CE systems in the past, these approaches cannot be readily integrated into a compact hybrid-MCE device. We instead employed a solid-state avalanche photodiode (APD)-based detector for real-time, high-sensitivity ß particle detection. The integrated system can reliably separate [18F]FLT from its impurities and perform chemical identification via coinjection with nonradioactive reference standard. This system can quantitate samples with radioactivity concentrations as low as 114 MBq/mL (3.1 mCi/mL), which is sufficient for analysis of radiochemical purity of radiopharmaceuticals.

Micro-chemical synthesis of molecular probes on an electronic microfluidic device.

We have developed an all-electronic digital microfluidic device for microscale chemical synthesis in organic solvents, operated by electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD). As an example of the principles, we demonstrate the multistep synthesis of [(18)F]FDG, the most common radiotracer for positron emission tomography (PET), with high and reliable radio-fluorination efficiency of [(18)F]FTAG (88 ± 7%, n = 11) and quantitative hydrolysis to [(18)F]FDG (> 95%, n = 11). We furthermore show that batches of purified [(18)F]FDG can successfully be used for PET imaging in mice and that they pass typical quality control requirements for human use (including radiochemical purity, residual solvents, Kryptofix, chemical purity, and pH). We report statistical repeatability of the radiosynthesis rather than best-case results, demonstrating the robustness of the EWOD microfluidic platform. Exhibiting high compatibility with organic solvents and the ability to carry out sophisticated actuation and sensing of reaction droplets, EWOD is a unique platform for performing diverse microscale chemical syntheses in small volumes, including multistep processes with intermediate solvent-exchange steps.

An Automated Mouse Tail Vascular Access System by Vision and Pressure Feedback.

This paper develops an automated vascular access system (A-VAS) with novel vision-based vein and needle detection methods and real-time pressure feedback for murine drug delivery. Mouse tail vein injection is a routine but critical step for preclinical imaging applications. Due to the small vein diameter and external disturbances such as tail hair, pigmentation, and scales, identifying vein location is difficult and manual injections usually result in poor repeatability. To improve the injection accuracy, consistency, safety, and processing time, A-VAS was developed to overcome difficulties in vein detection noise rejection, robustness in needle tracking, and visual servoing integration with the mechatronics system.

Exploring Automated Contouring Across Institutional Boundaries: A Deep Learning Approach with Mouse Micro-CT Datasets.

Image-guided mouse irradiation is essential to understand interventions involving radiation prior to human studies. Our objective is to employ Swin UNEt Transformers (Swin UNETR) to segment native micro-CT and contrast-enhanced micro-CT scans and benchmark the results against 3D no-new-Net (nnU-Net). Swin UNETR reformulates mouse organ segmentation as a sequence-to-sequence prediction task, using a hierarchical Swin Transformer encoder to extract features at 5 resolution levels, and connects to a Fully Convolutional Neural Network (FCNN)-based decoder via skip connections. The models were trained and evaluated on open datasets, with data separation based on individual mice. Further evaluation on an external mouse dataset acquired on a different micro-CT with lower kVp and higher imaging noise was also employed to assess model robustness and generalizability. Results indicate that Swin UNETR consistently outperforms nnU-Net and AIMOS in terms of average dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and Hausdorff distance (HD95p), except in two mice of intestine contouring. This superior performance is especially evident in the external dataset, confirming the model's robustness to variations in imaging conditions, including noise and quality, thereby positioning Swin UNETR as a highly generalizable and efficient tool for automated contouring in pre-clinical workflows.

Optimization of microfluidic PET tracer synthesis with Cerenkov imaging.

Microfluidic technologies provide an attractive platform for the synthesis of radiolabeled compounds. Visualization of radioisotopes on chip is critical for synthesis optimization and technological development. With Cerenkov imaging, beta particle emitting isotopes can be localized with a sensitive CCD camera. In order for Cerenkov imaging to also serve as a quantitative tool, it is necessary to understand how material properties relevant to Cerenkov emission, namely, index of refraction and beta particle stopping power, affect Cerenkov light output. In this report, we investigate the fundamental physical characteristics of Cerenkov photon yield at different stages of [(18)F]FDG synthesis on the electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD) microfluidic platform. We also demonstrate how Cerenkov imaging has enabled synthesis optimization. Geant4, a Monte Carlo program applied extensively in high energy physics, is used to simulate Cerenkov photon yield from (18)F beta particles traversing materials of interest during [(18)F]FDG synthesis on chip. Our simulations show that the majority (approximately two-thirds) of the (18)F beta particle energy available to produce Cerenkov photons is deposited on the glass plates of the EWOD chip. This result suggests the possibility of using a single calibration factor to convert Cerenkov signal to radioactivity, independent of droplet composition. We validate our simulations with a controlled measurement examining varying ratios of [(18)O]H2O, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and acetonitrile (MeCN), and find a consistent calibration independent of solvent composition. However, the calibration factor may underestimate the radioactivity in actual synthesis due to discoloration of the droplet during certain steps of probe synthesis. In addition to the attractive quantitative potential of Cerenkov imaging, this imaging strategy provides indispensable qualitative data to guide synthesis optimization. We are able to use this imaging technique to optimize the mixing protocol as well as identify and correct for loss of radioactivity due to the migration of radioactive vapor outside of the EWOD heater, enabling an overall increase in the crude radiochemical yield from 50 ± 3% (n = 3) to 72 ± 13% (n = 5).

A CNN-based four-layer DOI encoding detector using LYSO and BGO scintillators for small animal PET imaging.

Objective. We propose a novel four-layer depth-of-interaction (DOI) encoding phoswich detector using lutetium-yttrium oxyothosilicate (LYSO) and bismuth germanate (BGO) scintillator crystal arrays for high sensitivity and high spatial resolution small animal PET imaging.Approach. The detector was comprised of a stack of four alternating LYSO and BGO scintillator crystal arrays coupled to an 8 × 8 multi-pixel photon counter (MPPC) array and read out by a PETsys TOFPET2 application specific integrated circuit. The four layers from the top (gamma ray entrance) to the bottom (facing the MPPC) consisted of a 24 × 24 array of 0.99 × 0.99 × 6 mm3LYSO crystals, a 24 × 24 array of 0.99 × 0.99 × 6 mm3BGO crystals, a 16 × 16 array of 1.53 × 1.53 × 6 mm3LYSO crystals and a 16 × 16 array of 1.53 × 1.53 × 6 mm3BGO crystals.Main results. Events that occurred in the LYSO and BGO layers were first separated by measuring the pulse energy (integrated charge) and duration (time over threshold (ToT)) from the scintillation pulses. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were then used to distinguish between the top and lower LYSO layers and between the upper and bottom BGO layers. Measurements with the prototype detector showed that our proposed method successfully identified events from all four layers. The CNN models achieved a classification accuracy of 91% for distinguishing the two LYSO layers and 81% for distinguishing the two BGO layers. The measured average energy resolution was 13.1% ± 1.7% for the top LYSO layer, 34.0% ± 6.3% for the upper BGO layer, 12.3% ± 1.3% for the lower LYSO layer, and 33.9% ± 6.9% for the bottom BGO layer. The timing resolution between each individual layer (from the top to the bottom) and a single crystal reference detector was 350 ps, 2.8 ns, 328 ps, and 2.1 ns respectively.Significance. In conclusion, the proposed four-layer DOI encoding detector achieved high performance and is an attractive choice for next-generation high sensitivity and high spatial resolution small animal positron emission tomography systems.

Cerenkov Luminescence Imaging in the Development and Production of Radiopharmaceuticals.

Over the past several years there has been an explosion of interest in exploiting Cerenkov radiation to enable in vivo and intraoperative optical imaging of subjects injected with trace amounts of radiopharmaceuticals. At the same time, Cerenkov luminescence imaging (CLI) also has been serving as a critical tool in radiochemistry, especially for the development of novel microfluidic devices for producing radiopharmaceuticals. By enabling microfluidic processes to be monitored non-destructively in situ, CLI has made it possible to literally watch the activity distribution as the synthesis occurs, and to quantitatively measure activity propagation and losses at each step of synthesis, paving the way for significant strides forward in performance and robustness of those devices. In some cases, CLI has enabled detection and resolution of unexpected problems not observable via standard optical methods. CLI is also being used in analytical radiochemistry to increase the reliability of radio-thin layer chromatography (radio-TLC) assays. Rapid and high-resolution Cerenkov imaging of radio-TLC plates enables detection of issues in the spotting or separation process, improves chromatographic resolution (and/or allows reduced separation distance and time), and enables increased throughput by allowing multiple samples to be spotted side-by-side on a single TLC plate for parallel separation and readout. In combination with new multi-reaction microfluidic chips, this is creating a new possibility for high-throughput optimization in radiochemistry. In this mini review, we provide an overview of the role that CLI has played to date in the radiochemistry side of radiopharmaceuticals.

Estimation of the minimum detectable activity of preclinical PET imaging systems with an analytical method.

PURPOSE: The traditional figures of merit used in the evaluation of positron emission tomography (PET) systems, including system sensitivity and spatial resolution, do not directly reflect the minimum detectable activity (MDA) performance, despite the fact that it is one of the most important tasks for a PET system. MDA, as a combination of the more traditional PET system parameters, is directly related to lesion detection. However, MDA evaluation is task specific and cannot be done by a single measurement. Therefore, a simple method to evaluate system detectability needs to be developed. METHODS: In this work, an analytical method of MDA estimation was developed, taking into account system sensitivity, spatial resolution, source properties, and noise propagation in image reconstruction by using the Rose criterion and/or the Curie equation as the detection standard. In the implementation, the source background, as well as the intrinsic activity background from the scintillation material of the system, was also taken into consideration. The accuracy of this method was evaluated in two commercially available preclinical PET systems, with phantom experiments that were designed to closely mimic in vivo tumor uptake without introducing finite boundaries between the source and the background. RESULTS: The lesion contrast-to-noise ratio calculated by the analytical evaluation showed good agreement with that obtained from the experiments. Visual assessment of the reconstructed images at the detection limit (based on analytical evaluation) also was in agreement with the Rose criterion. The MDA performance was quantitatively compared between the two preclinical PET systems and showed different detection limits under different imaging conditions, suggesting that the detection limit of a PET system strongly depends on the lesion properties and acquisition settings. CONCLUSIONS: An analytical method of evaluating the PET system detectability was developed and validated by experiments. Overall, the analytical MDA calculation provides a simple way to evaluate the signal detectability of a PET system and can be used for comparing different systems. It also provides guidelines for designing new PET tomographs as well as optimizing data acquisition protocols.

A digital phoswich detector using time-over-threshold for depth of interaction in PET.

We present the performance of a digital phoswich positron emission tomography (PET) detector, composed by layers of pixilated scintillator arrays, read out by solid state light detectors and an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). We investigated the use of integrated charge from the scintillation pulses along with time-over-threshold (ToT) to determine the layer of interaction (DOI) in the scintillator. Simulations were performed to assess the effectiveness of the ToT measurements for separating the scintillator events and identifying cross-layer-crystal-scatter (CLCS) events. These simulations indicate that ToT and charge integration from such a detector provide sufficient information to determine the layer of interaction. To demonstrate this in practice, we used a pair of prototype LYSO/BGO detectors. One detector consisted of a 19 × 19 array of 7 mm long LYSO crystals (1.36 mm pitch) coupled to a 16 × 16 array of 8 mm long BGO crystals (1.63 mm pitch). The other detector was similar except the LYSO crystal pitch was 1.63 mm. These detectors were coupled to an 8 × 8 multi-pixel photon counter mounted on a PETsys TOFPET2 ASIC. This high performance ASIC provided digital readout of the integrated charge and ToT from these detectors. We present a method to separate the events from the two scintillator layers using the ToT, and also investigate the performance of this detector. All the crystals within the proposed detector were clearly resolved, and the peak to valley ratio was 11.8 ± 4.0 and 10.1 ± 2.9 for the LYSO and BGO flood images. The measured energy resolution was 9.9% ± 1.3% and 28.5% ± 5.0% respectively for the LYSO and BGO crystals in the phoswich layers. The timing resolution between the LYSO-LYSO, LYSO-BGO and BGO-BGO coincidences was 468 ps, 1.33 ns and 2.14 ns respectively. Results show ToT can be used to identify the crystal layer where events occurred and also identify and reject the majority of CLCS events between layers.

Performance evaluation of HiPET, a high sensitivity and high resolution preclinical PET tomograph.

HiPET is a recently developed prototype preclinical PET scanner dedicated to high sensitivity and high resolution molecular imaging. The HiPET system employs a phoswich depth of interaction (DOI) detector design, which also allows identification of the large majority of the cross layer crystal scatter (CLCS) events. This work evaluates its performance characteristics following the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) NU4-2008 protocol. The HiPET consists of twenty flat panel type detectors arranged in two rings. The inner diameter is 160 mm and the axial field of view (FOV) is 104 mm. Each detector is comprised of two layers of phoswich scintillator crystal arrays, a tapered, pixelated glass lightguide and a multi anode photomultiplier tube (MAPMT). The front (gamma ray entrance) layer is a 48 × 48 pixelated cerium doped lutetium yttrium orthosilicate (LYSO) scintillator array with individual crystals measuring 1.01 × 1.01 × 6.1 mm. The back (towards the PMT) layer is a 32 × 32 pixelated bismuth germanate (BGO) scintillator array with individual crystals measuring 1.55 × 1.55 × 8.9 mm. For energy windows of 250-650 keV and 350-650 keV, the peak absolute sensitivity at the center of the FOV was 13.5% and 10.4% including CLCS events, and 11.8% and 8.9% excluding CLCS events, respectively. The average detector energy resolution derived by averaging the individual crystal spectra was 11.7% ± 1.4% for LYSO and 17.0% ± 1.4% for BGO. The 3D ordered-subsets expectation maximization (OSEM) reconstructed image of a point source in air, ranged from 0.73 mm to 1.19 mm, with an average value of 0.93 ± 0.09 mm at all measured locations. The peak noise equivalent count rate (NECR) and scatter fraction were 179 kcps at 12.4 MBq and 6.9% for the mouse-sized phantom, and 63 kcps at 11.3 MBq and 18.3% for the rat-sized phantom. For the NEMA image quality phantom, the uniformity was 5.8%, and the spillover ratios measured in the water- and air-filled cold region chambers were 0.047 and 0.044, respectively. The recovery coefficients (RC) ranged from 0.31 to 0.92. These results and in vivo evaluation demonstrate that the HiPET can achieve high quality molecular imaging for biomedical applications.

High-throughput radio-TLC analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Radio thin layer chromatography (radio-TLC) is commonly used to analyze purity of radiopharmaceuticals or to determine the reaction conversion when optimizing radiosynthesis processes. In applications where there are few radioactive species, radio-TLC is preferred over radio-high-performance liquid chromatography due to its simplicity and relatively quick analysis time. However, with current radio-TLC methods, it remains cumbersome to analyze a large number of samples during reaction optimization. In a couple of studies, Cerenkov luminescence imaging (CLI) has been used for reading radio-TLC plates spotted with a variety of isotopes. We show that this approach can be extended to develop a high-throughput approach for radio-TLC analysis of many samples. METHODS: The high-throughput radio-TLC analysis was carried out by performing parallel development of multiple radioactive samples spotted on a single TLC plate, followed by simultaneous readout of the separated samples using Cerenkov imaging. Using custom-written MATLAB software, images were processed and regions of interest (ROIs) were drawn to enclose the radioactive regions/spots. For each sample, the proportion of integrated signal in each ROI was computed. Various crude samples of [18F]fallypride, [18F]FET and [177Lu]Lu-PSMA-617 were prepared for demonstration of this new method. RESULTS: Benefiting from a parallel developing process and high resolution of CLI-based readout, total analysis time for eight [18F]fallypride samples was 7.5 min (2.5 min for parallel developing, 5 min for parallel readout), which was significantly shorter than the 48 min needed using conventional approaches (24 min for sequential developing, 24 min for sequential readout on a radio-TLC scanner). The greater separation resolution of CLI enabled the discovery of a low-abundance side product from a crude [18F]FET sample that was not discernable using the radio-TLC scanner. Using the CLI-based readout method, we also observed that high labeling efficiency (99%) of [177Lu]Lu-PSMA-617 can be achieved in just 10 min, rather than the typical 30 min timeframe used. CONCLUSIONS: Cerenkov imaging in combination with parallel developing of multiple samples on a single TLC plate proved to be a practical method for rapid, high-throughput radio-TLC analysis.

Performance evaluation of the inveon dedicated PET preclinical tomograph based on the NEMA NU-4 standards.

UNLABELLED: The Inveon dedicated PET (DPET) scanner is the latest generation of preclinical PET systems devoted to high-resolution and high-sensitivity murine model imaging. In this study, we report on its performance based on the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) NU-4 standards. METHODS: The Inveon DPET consists of 64 lutetium oxyorthosilicate block detectors arranged in 4 contiguous rings, with a 16.1-cm ring diameter and a 12.7-cm axial length. Each detector block consists of a 20 x 20 lutetium oxyorthosilicate crystal array of 1.51 x 1.51 x 10.0 mm elements. The scintillation light is transmitted to position-sensitive photomultiplier tubes via optical light guides. Energy resolution, spatial resolution, sensitivity, scatter fraction, and counting-rate performance were evaluated. The NEMA NU-4 image-quality phantom and a healthy mouse injected with (18)F-FDG and (18)F(-) were scanned to evaluate the imaging capability of the Inveon DPET. RESULTS: The energy resolution at 511 keV was 14.6% on average for the entire system. In-plane radial and tangential resolutions reconstructed with Fourier rebinning and filtered backprojection algorithms were below 1.8-mm full width at half maximum (FWHM) at the center of the field of view. The radial and tangential resolution remained under 2.0 mm, and the axial resolution remained under 2.5-mm FWHM within the central 4-cm diameter of the field of view. The absolute sensitivity of the system was 9.3% for an energy window of 250-625 keV and a timing window of 3.432 ns. At a 350- to 625-keV energy window and a 3.432-ns timing window, the peak noise equivalent counting rate was 1,670 kcps at 130 MBq for the mouse-sized phantom and 590 kcps at 110 MBq for the rat-sized phantom. The scatter fractions at the same acquisition settings were 7.8% and 17.2% for the mouse- and rat-sized phantoms, respectively. The mouse image-quality phantom results demonstrate that for typical mouse acquisitions, the image quality correlates well with the measured performance parameters in terms of image uniformity, recovery coefficients, attenuation, and scatter corrections. CONCLUSION: The Inveon system, compared with previous generations of preclinical PET systems from the same manufacturer, shows significantly improved energy resolution, sensitivity, axial coverage, and counting-rate capabilities. The performance of the Inveon is suitable for successful murine model imaging experiments.

Experimental bioluminescence tomography with fully parallel radiative-transfer-based reconstruction framework.

Bioluminescence imaging is a very sensitive imaging modality, used in preclinical molecular imaging. However, in its planar projection form, it is non-quantitative and has poor spatial resolution. In contrast, bioluminescence tomography (BLT) promises to provide three dimensional quantitative source information. Currently, nearly all BLT reconstruction algorithms in use employ the diffusion approximation theory to determine light propagation in tissues. In this process, several approximations and assumptions that are made severely affect the reconstruction quality of BLT. It is therefore necessary to develop novel reconstruction methods using high-order approximation models to the radiative transfer equation (RTE) as well as more complex geometries for the whole-body of small animals. However, these methodologies introduce significant challenges not only in terms of reconstruction speed but also for the overall reconstruction strategy. In this paper, a novel fully-parallel reconstruction framework is proposed which uses a simplified spherical harmonics approximation (SPN). Using this framework, a simple linear relationship between the unknown source distribution and the surface measured photon density can be established. The distributed storage and parallel operations of the finite element-based matrix make SPN-based spectrally resolved reconstruction feasible at the small animal whole body level. Performance optimization of the major steps of the framework remarkably improves reconstruction speed. Experimental reconstructions with mouse-shaped phantoms and real mice show the effectiveness and potential of this framework. This work constitutes an important advance towards developing more precise BLT reconstruction algorithms that utilize high-order approximations, particularly second-order self-adjoint forms to the RTE for in vivo small animal experiments.

Source reconstruction for spectrally-resolved bioluminescence tomography with sparse a priori information.

Through restoration of the light source information in small animals in vivo, optical molecular imaging, such as fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) and bioluminescence tomography (BLT), can depict biological and physiological changes observed using molecular probes. A priori information plays an indispensable role in tomographic reconstruction. As a type of a priori information, the sparsity characteristic of the light source has not been sufficiently considered to date. In this paper, we introduce a compressed sensing method to develop a new tomographic algorithm for spectrally-resolved bioluminescence tomography. This method uses the nature of the source sparsity to improve the reconstruction quality with a regularization implementation. Based on verification of the inverse crime, the proposed algorithm is validated with Monte Carlo-based synthetic data and the popular Tikhonov regularization method. Testing with different noise levels and single/multiple source settings at different depths demonstrates the improved performance of this algorithm. Experimental reconstruction with a mouse-shaped phantom further shows the potential of the proposed algorithm.

Multimodality rodent imaging chambers for use under barrier conditions with gas anesthesia.

PURPOSE: The ability to reproducibly and repeatedly image rodents in noninvasive imaging systems, such as small-animal positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT), requires a reliable method for anesthetizing, positioning, and heating animals in a simple reproducible manner. In this paper, we demonstrate that mice and rats can be reproducibly and repeatedly imaged using an imaging chamber designed to be rigidly mounted on multiple imaging systems. PROCEDURES: Mouse and rat imaging chambers were made of acrylic plastic and aluminum. MicroCT scans were used to evaluate the positioning reproducibility of the chambers in multimodality and longitudinal imaging studies. The ability of the chambers to maintain mouse and rat body temperatures while anesthetized with gas anesthesia was also evaluated. RESULTS: Both the mouse and rat imaging chambers were able to reproducibly position the animals in the imaging systems with a small degree of error. Placement of the mouse in the mouse imaging chamber resulted in a mean distance of 0.23 mm per reference point in multimodality studies, whereas for longitudinal studies the mean difference was 1.11 mm. The rat chamber resulted in a mean difference of 0.46 mm in multimodality studies and a mean difference of 4.31 mm in longitudinal studies per reference point. The chambers maintained rodent body temperatures at the set point temperature of 38 degrees C. CONCLUSIONS: The rodent imaging chambers were able to reproducibly position rodents in tomographs with a small degree of variability and were compatible with routine use. The embedded anesthetic line and heating system was capable of maintaining the rodent's temperature and anesthetic state, thereby enhancing rodent health and improving data collection reliability.

Recombinant carcinoembryonic antigen as a reporter gene for molecular imaging.

PURPOSE: Reporter genes can provide a way of noninvasively assessing gene activity in vivo. However, current reporter gene strategies may be limited by the immunogenicity of foreign reporter proteins, endogenous expression, or unwanted biological activity. We have developed a reporter gene based on carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), a human protein with limited normal tissue expression. METHODS: To construct a CEA reporter gene for PET, a CEA minigene (N-A3) was fused to the extracellular and transmembrane domains of the human Fc gamma RIIb receptor. The NA3-Fc gamma RIIb recombinant gene, driven by a CMV promoter, was transfected in Jurkat (human T cell leukemia) cells. Expression was analyzed by flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and microPET imaging. RESULTS: Flow cytometry identified Jurkat clones stably expressing NA3-Fc gamma RIIb at low, medium, and high levels. High and medium NA3-Fc gamma RIIb expression could also be detected by Western blot. Reporter gene positive and negative Jurkat cells were used to establish xenografts in athymic mice. IHC showed staining of the tumor with high reporter gene expression; medium and low N-A3 expression was not detected. MicroPET imaging, using an anti-CEA (124)I-labeled single-chain Fv-Fc antibody fragment, demonstrated that only high N-A3 expression could be detected. Specific accumulation of activity was visualized at the N-A3 positive tumor as early as 4 h. MicroPET image quantitation showed tumor activity of 1.8 +/- 0.2, 15.2 +/- 1.3, and 4.6 +/- 1.2 percent injected dose per gram (%ID/g) at 4, 20, and 48 h, respectively. Biodistribution at 48 h demonstrated tumor uptake of 4.8 +/- 0.8%ID/g. CONCLUSION: The CEA N-A3 minigene has the potential to be used as a reporter gene for imaging cells in vivo.

Prediction of major torso organs in low-contrast micro-CT images of mice using a two-stage deeply supervised fully convolutional network.

Delineation of major torso organs is a key step of mouse micro-CT image analysis. This task is challenging due to low soft tissue contrast and high image noise, therefore anatomical prior knowledge is needed for accurate prediction of organ regions. In this work, we develop a deeply supervised fully convolutional network which uses the organ anatomy prior learned from independently acquired contrast-enhanced micro-CT images to assist the segmentation of non-enhanced images. The network is designed with a two-stage workflow which firstly predicts the rough regions of multiple organs and then refines the accuracy of each organ in local regions. The network is trained and evaluated with 40 mouse micro-CT images. The volumetric prediction accuracy (Dice score) varies from 0.57 for the spleen to 0.95 for the heart. Compared to a conventional atlas registration method, our method dramatically improves the Dice of the abdominal organs by 18%-26%. Moreover, the incorporation of anatomical prior leads to more accurate results for small-sized low-contrast organs (e.g. the spleen and kidneys). We also find that the localized stage of the network has better accuracy than the global stage, indicating that localized single organ prediction is more accurate than global multiple organ prediction. With this work, the accuracy and efficiency of mouse micro-CT image analysis are greatly improved and the need for using contrast agent and high x-ray dose is potentially reduced.

Performance Evaluation of G8, a High-Sensitivity Benchtop Preclinical PET/CT Tomograph.

G8 is a benchtop integrated PET/CT scanner dedicated to high-sensitivity and high-resolution imaging of mice. This work characterizes its National Electrical Manufacturers Association NU 4-2008 performance where applicable and also assesses the basic imaging performance of the CT subsystem. Methods: The PET subsystem in G8 consists of 4 flat-panel detectors arranged in a boxlike geometry. Each panel consists of 2 modules of a 26 × 26 pixelated bismuth germanate scintillator array with individual crystals measuring 1.75 × 1.75 × 7.2 mm. The crystal arrays are coupled to multichannel photomultiplier tubes via a tapered, pixelated glass lightguide. A cone-beam CT scanner consisting of a MicroFocus x-ray source and a complementary metal oxide semiconductor detector provides anatomic information. Sensitivity, spatial resolution, energy resolution, scatter fraction, count-rate performance, and the capability of performing phantom and mouse imaging were evaluated for the PET subsystem. Noise, dose level, contrast, and resolution were evaluated for the CT subsystem. Results: With an energy window of 350-650 keV, the peak sensitivity was 9.0% near the center of the field of view. The crystal energy resolution ranged from 15.0% to 69.6% in full width at half maximum (FWHM), with a mean of 19.3% ± 3.7%. The average intrinsic spatial resolution was 1.30 and 1.38 mm FWHM in the transverse and axial directions, respectively. The maximum-likelihood expectation maximization reconstructed image of a point source in air averaged 0.81 ± 0.11 mm FWHM. The peak noise-equivalent count rate for the mouse-sized phantom was 44 kcps for a total activity of 2.9 MBq (78 µCi), and the scatter fraction was 11%. For the CT subsystem, the value of the modulation transfer function at 10% was 2.05 cycles/mm. Conclusion: The overall performance demonstrates that the G8 can produce high-quality images for molecular imaging-based biomedical research.

Characterization of osteolytic, osteoblastic, and mixed lesions in a prostate cancer mouse model using 18F-FDG and 18F-fluoride PET/CT.

UNLABELLED: The combination of small-animal PET/CT scans and conventional imaging methods may enhance the evaluation of in vivo biologic interactions of murine models in the study of prostate cancer metastasis to bone. METHODS: Small-animal PET/CT scans using (18)F-fluoride ion and (18)F-FDG coregistered with high-resolution small-animal CT scans were used to longitudinally assess the formation of osteoblastic, osteolytic, and mixed lesions formed by human prostate cancer cell lines in a severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mouse tibial injection model. These scans were correlated with plain radiographs, histomorphometry, and soft-tissue measurements. RESULTS: Small-animal PET/CT scans were able to detect biologic activity of cells that induced an osteoblastic lesion 2 wk earlier than on plain radiographs. Furthermore, both the size and the activity of the lesions detected on PET/CT images significantly increased at each successive time point (P < 0.05). (18)F-FDG lesions strongly correlated with soft-tissue measurements, whereas (18)F-fluoride ion activity correlated with bone volume measured on histomorphometric analysis (P < 0.005). Osteolytic lesions were successfully quantified using small-animal CT, whereas lesion sizes measured on (18)F-FDG PET scans also strongly correlated with soft-tissue tumor burden (P < 0.05). In contrast, for mixed lesions, (18)F-fluoride ion and (18)F-FDG PET/CT scans detected only minimal activity. CONCLUSION: (18)F-FDG and (18)F-fluoride ion PET/CT scans can be useful tools in characterizing pure osteolytic and osteoblastic lesions induced by human prostate cancer cell lines. The value of this technology needs further evaluation to determine whether these studies can be used effectively to detect more subtle responses to different treatment regimens in animal models.

Compressed voxels for high-resolution phantom simulations in GATE.

PURPOSE: We report here on a technique to implement high-resolution objects with voxels having variable dimensions (compressed) for the reduction of memory and central processing unit (CPU) requirements in Monte Carlo simulations. The technique, which was implemented in GATE, the GEANT4 application for positron emission tomography/single photon emission computed tomography (PET/SPECT) imaging simulations, was developed in response to our need for realistic high-resolution phantoms for dosimetry calculations. PROCEDURES: A compression algorithm similar to run-length encoding for one-dimensional data streams, was used to fuse together adjacent voxels with identical physical properties. The algorithm was verified by conducting dosimetric calculations and imaging experiments on compressed and uncompressed phantoms. RESULTS: Depending on the initial phantom size and composition, compression ratios of up to 99.9% were achieved allowing memory and CPU reductions of up to 85% and 70%, respectively. The output of the simulations was consistent with respect to the goals for each type of simulation performed (dosimetry and imaging). CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of compressed voxels in GATE allows for significant memory and CPU reduction and is suitable for dosimetry as well as for imaging experiments.