Abstract
BackgroundBimodal molecular imaging with fluorescence diffuse optical tomography (fDOT) and positron emission tomography (PET) has the capacity to provide multiple molecular information of mouse tumors. The objective of the present study is to co-register fDOT and PET molecular images of tumors in mice automatically.MethodsThe coordinates of bimodal fiducial markers (FM) in regions of detection were automatically detected in planar optical images (x, y positions) in laser pattern optical surface images (z position) and in 3-D PET images. A transformation matrix was calculated from the coordinates of the FM in fDOT and in PET and applied in order to co-register images of mice bearing neuroendocrine tumors.ResultsThe method yielded accurate non-supervised co-registration of fDOT and PET images. The mean fiducial registration error was smaller than the respective voxel sizes for both modalities, allowing comparison of the distribution of contrast agents from both modalities in mice. Combined imaging depicting tumor metabolism with PET-[18 F]2-deoxy-2-fluoro-d-glucose and blood pool with fDOT demonstrated partial overlap of the two signals.ConclusionsThis automatic method for co-registration of fDOT with PET and other modalities is efficient, simple and rapid, opening up multiplexing capacities for experimental in vivo molecular imaging.
Highlights
Positron emission tomography (PET) with [18 F]2-deoxy2-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG), the most efficient imaging method to detect cancer, is an indicator of tumor energy metabolism dominated by aerobic glycolysis in both cancer and tumor-associated inflammatory cells [3]
Surface reconstruction is directly implemented into the 3-D fDOTPET combined image. We show that this method efficiently performs co-registration of fluorescence diffuse optical tomography (fDOT) and positron emission tomography (PET) images of the same mouse with a co-registration error smaller than the intrinsic resolution of PET and fDOT
Input files include (1) the mouse photograph, (2) the optical surface scan, (3) a header file containing the position of the fDOT image relative to the camera's field of view, and (4) the PET volume image
Summary
Bimodal molecular imaging with fluorescence diffuse optical tomography (fDOT) and positron emission tomography (PET) has the capacity to provide multiple molecular information of mouse tumors. The complexity of tumors and their sophisticated interactions with their environment call for imaging methods capable of detecting a diversity of tumor hallmarks [1,2]. Positron emission tomography (PET) with [18 F]2-deoxy2-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG), the most efficient imaging method to detect cancer, is an indicator of tumor energy metabolism dominated by aerobic glycolysis in both cancer and tumor-associated inflammatory cells [3]. PET imaging with other radiotracers can complement FDG but cannot be performed in the same imaging session. As far as experimental molecular imaging is concerned, multiple PET sessions are difficult to envision on a large scale because of high cost and low practicability
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