Comparative Analysis of Micro-Computed Tomography and 3D Micro-Ultrasound for Measurement of the Mouse Aorta.

ABSTRACT

Aortic aneurysms, life-threatening and often undetected until they cause sudden death, occur when the aorta dilates beyond 1.5 times its normal size. This study used ultrasound scans and micro-computed tomography to monitor and measure aortic volume in preclinical settings, comparing it to the well-established measurement using ultrasound scans. The reproducibility of measurements was also examined for intra- and inter-observer variability, with both modalities used on 8-week-old C57BL6 mice. For inter-observer variability, the µCT (micro-computed tomography) measurements for the thoracic, abdominal, and whole aorta between observers were highly consistent, showing a strong positive correlation (R2 = 0.80, 0.80, 0.95, respectively) and no significant variability (p-value 0.03, 0.03, 0.004, respectively). The intra-observer variability for thoracic, abdominal, and whole aorta scans demonstrated a significant positive correlation (R2 = 0.99, 0.96, 0.87, respectively) and low variability (p-values = 0.0004, 0.002, 0.01, respectively). The comparison between µCT and USS (ultrasound) in the suprarenal and infrarenal aorta showed no significant difference (p-value = 0.20 and 0.21, respectively). µCT provided significantly higher aortic volume measurements compared to USS. The reproducibility of USS and µCT measurements was consistent, showing minimal variance among observers. These findings suggest that µCT is a reliable alternative for comprehensive aortic phenotyping, consistent with clinical findings in human data.