Development of high-resolution ex vivo single-photon and positron emission tomography

Molecular imaging aims for the visualisation, characterisation, and quantification of biological processes in humans and other living systems at the molecular and cellular level. For today’s patient care, molecular imaging allows for (early) detection and characterisation of disease, efficient planning and assessment of treatments, and...

EXIRAD-HE: Multi-pinhole high-resolution ex vivo imaging of high-energy isotopes

We recently developed a dedicated focusing multi-pinhole collimator for a stationary SPECT system that offers down to 120 m (or 1.7 nL) spatial resolution SPECT images of cryo-cooled tissue samples (EXIRAD-3D). This collimator is suitable for imaging isotopes that are often used in small animal and diagnostic SPECT such as 125I (27 keV),...

EXIRAD-3D: Fast automated three-dimensional autoradiography

Introduction: Autoradiography is an established technique for high-resolution imaging of radiolabelled molecules in biological tissue slices. Unfortunately, creating a 3D image from a set of these 2D images is extremely time-consuming and error-prone. MicroSPECT systems provide such 3D images but have a low resolution. Here we present EXIRAD...

Comparison of the tissue interaction between thermal ablation and cryotherapy as treatment for cervical precancerous lesions in an ex-vivo model

Both cryotherapy and thermal ablation are treatment methods for cervical precancerous lesions in screening programs in resource constrained settings. However, for thermal ablation the World Health Organization stated that there is insufficient data to define a standard treatment protocol. This study used an ex-vivo model to compare the tissue...

Comparing in vivo and ex vivo fiberoptic diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in colorectal cancer

In vivo data acquisition using fiberoptic diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is more complicated and less controlled compared to ex vivo data acquisition. It would be of great benefit if classifiers for in vivo tissue discrimination based on DRS could be trained on data obtained ex vivo. In this study, in vivo and ex vivo DRS measurements...

Staphylococcus aureus ST398 gene expression profiling during ex vivo colonization of porcine nasal epithelium

Background Staphylococcus aureus is a common human and animal opportunistic pathogen. In humans nasal carriage of S. aureus is a risk factor for various infections. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus ST398 is highly prevalent in pigs in Europe and North America. The mechanism of successful pig colonization by MRSA ST398 is poorly understood....