Quantitative blood flow measurements in the small animal cardiopulmonary system using digital subtraction angiography

摘要

Purpose: The use of preclinical rodent models of disease continues to grow because these models help elucidate pathogenic mechanisms and provide robust test beds for drug development. Among the major anatomic and physiologic indicators of disease progression and genetic or drug modification of responses are measurements of blood vessel caliber and flow. Moreover, cardiopulmonary blood flow is a critical indicator of gas exchange. Current methods of measuring cardiopulmonary blood flow suffer from some or all of the following limitations—they produce relative values, are limited to global measurements, do not provide vasculature visualization, are not able to measure acute changes, are invasive, or require euthanasia.