The University of Pennsylvania seeks to acquire an eXplore CT 120 pre-clinical x-ray CT scanner for high resolution scanning of rodents. The eXplore CT 120 scanner, manufactured by GE Healthcare, is an instrument which uses x-rays to visualize, quantify and characterize anatomical parameters in small animals such as mice and rats. High resolution CT (HRCT) imaging is a non-invasive imaging technique which allows it to be used in many areas of research. Using this system, it is possible to perform prospectively-gated respiratory and cardiac imaging with extremely high precision with reduced motion artifacts in the heart and thorax. It is possible to obtain a physical image resolution of 80mm (FWHM) with derived limiting resolution of 14 lp/mm @ 3% MTF and derived bone feature detail delectability of 4 5m. The proposed instrument can facilitate basic research in pulmonary physiology, cancer, cardiac function and biomechanical properties of biological tissues. HRCT, in particular, is becoming particularly well-accepted as a diagnostic tool for certain chronic pulmonary disorder indications, because of its ability to directly measure airway dimensions and determine quantitatively the tissue density per voxel. The eXplore CT 120 scanner is a general purpose instrument and could be used to study many biological areas of interest. These include cardiac, pulmonary, respiratory, vasculature, phenotypes, soft tissue, oncology, and body composition imaging. The proposed instrument is dedicated 100% to research, and it will be used by investigators from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as other regional academic institutes including Temple University, Drexel University, Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Thomas Jefferson University. It will significantly enhance several major user programs with principal investigators who are supported by a number of NIH grants. The programs include (i) direct staging and phenotyping of emphysema progression, (ii) the extent to which non-radiative 3He methods are an effective surrogate for CT, (iii) the quantitative relationship between x-ray attenuation and alveolar dimensions, (iv) the relative sensitivity of the measurements to early disease and correlations to pulmonary function tests;and (v) the qualitative relationship between structural lung changes and alveolar oxygen tension.
Computed tomography (CT) imaging has the potential to reveal high-resolution structures in healthy and diseased tissues. Important clinical applications include diagnosis of tumors and other pathologies in various application areas including pulmonary, cardiac, biomechanics and cancer tumors.
