Affiliations: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan
National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China | MoE Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics, Department
of Biomedical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Wuhan, Hubei, China
Note: [] Corresponding author: Xiaoquan Yang, Britton Chance Center for
Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong
University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430074, Hubei,
China. Tel.: +86 27 87792033; Fax: +86 27 87792034; E-mail:
yangxiaoquan@gmail.com
Abstract: The dual-modality systems combined fluorescence molecular tomography
(FMT) and micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) can provide molecular and
anatomical information of small animals simultaneously. Except for anatomic
localization, micro-CT should also offer boundary of different organs as
reconstruction priors for FMT, which is more challenging than acquisition of
structural information. In this paper, we propose a framework to extract
structural priors of a living mouse with micro-CT. The iodinated lipid emulsion
contrast agent was adopted to enhance the contrast of the soft tissues of the
mouse. Then organs in thorax and abdomen were segmented with different
approaches depending on the characteristics of the organs. Bone, lung, heart,
liver, spleen, and muscles were separately segmented. And the results were
compared with that manually segmented. The Tanimoto coefficient and the
relative volume difference of segmented slices were measured to be 91.28
± 5.78 and 0.27 ± 3.15, respectively. In our simulation study of
FMT reconstruction, the errors of measured position and concentration of the
fluorophore with priors declined by 89.7% and 79.6% in thorax, as well as 80.8%
and 78.3% in abdomen, respectively, compared with the results without priors.
The proposed scheme will make FMT reconstruction much more reliable and
practical in small animal study.
