Intraperitoneal injections as an alternative method for micro-CT contrast enhanced detection of murine liver tumors

Abstract

Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) coupled with tissue, or vascular, specific contrast agent has emerged as a powerful tool for detecting and monitoring tumor growth in the liver of murine animals. Intravenous injections of contrast agents can be technically challenging and lead to errors that can considerably influence the outcome of a preclinical study, prompting an alternative method. Here we assessed the effectiveness of intraperitoneal injections of polyiodinated triglycerides emulsions (FenestraLC) in micro-CT imaging of young SCID (8 weeks) and old BALB/c (48 weeks) mice with xenograft or carcinogen-induced liver tumors, respectively, and determined an optimal acquisition time. Utilizing an intraperitoneal injection is a viable alternative administration route for using Fenestrain detection and quantification of murine liver tumor burden. METHOD SUMMARY We report that intraperitoneal injections of polyiodinated triglycerides emulsions are a suitable alternative to the intravenous administration route in detecting and quantifying murine liver tumor burden.