Evaluation of tomographic reconstruction for small animals using micro digital tomosynthesis (microDTS)

Abstract

Significant advances in the development of transgenic and knockout animal models of human disease have made whole-animal imaging an important new application for micro CT. In many studies of genetically altered animals, investigators require a non-destructive, 3D technique to characterize the phenotype of the animal. However, a fundamental limitation which should be considered, especially in experiments involving imaging the same animal over time, is the inherent use of ionizing radiations which may approach the lethal dose for small rodents. Digital Tomosynthesis (DTS) is a fast, low-dose 3D imaging approach which yields image with excellent in-plane resolution, though low plane-to-plane resolution. A stack of DTS slices can be reconstructed from a singlelimited arc scan, with typical scan angles ranging from 10°-60° and acquisition time of less than 10 seconds. This study evaluates the reconstructed tomograms for small animal imaging system using μCT and μDTS, for three different DTS scan angles (20°, 40°, and 60°). Resulting DTS slice show soft tissue contrast approaching that of full cone-beam CT.