• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2009

Many types of small animal imaging modalities, like micro-CT, micro-PET, and micro-SPECT, have been recently developed worldwide. Small animal imaging systems are now recognized as indispensable tools to validate efficacy and safety of new drugs or new therapeutic methods using the animal disease models. With increasing demands for small animal imaging in biomedical research, multimodal small animal imaging systems, like micro-PET/CT or micro PET/MRI, are now also being developed. Small animal imaging with spatial resolution and sensitivity comparable to human imaging is quite challenging since laboratory small animals are much smaller than human beings. Research activities in Korea on small animal imaging systems are reviewed in this paper. In the field of micro-CT and micro-PET, many world-class technologies have been developed successfully in Korea. It is expected that the developed animal imaging system technologies can be used in the development of clinical imaging systems in Korea in the near future.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2008

PET allows non-invasive, quantitative and repetitive imaging of biological function in living animals. Small animal PET imaging with $[^{18}F]$FDG has been successfully applied to investigation of metabolism, receptor-ligand interactions, gene expression, adoptive cell therapy and somatic gene therapy. Experimental condition of animal handling impacts on the biodistribution of $[^{18}F]$FDG in small animal study. The small animal PET and CT images were registered using the hardware fiducial markers and small animal contour point. Tumor imaging in small animal with small animal $[^{18}F]$FDG PET should be considered fasting, warming, and isoflurane anesthesia level. Registered imaging with small animal PET and CT image could be useful for the detection of tumor. Small animal experimental condition of animal handling and registration method will be of most importance for small lesion detection of metastases tumor model.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.23.1-23.5
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• 2022

A 5-year-old castrated male domestic shorthair cat was referred for further investigation of pulmonary nodules incidentally detected on thoracic radiographs. Thoracic radiographs identified ill-defined soft tissue opacity nodules with small faint mineral opacity. Thoracic computed tomography (CT) revealed that bronchial dilation and bronchial wall thickening in bilateral cranial and accessory lung lobes. Round to ellipsoid mineralized concretions were found embedded in the intrabronchial soft tissue attenuation material. Based on radiography, CT, and cytology, the patient was tentatively diagnosed as having broncholithiasis with chronic bronchitis. This report described the CT diagnosis of broncholithiasis, which has been rarely reported in a cat.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Veterinary Clinics Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.131-131
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• 2007

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.131-139
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• 2004

Small animal models are extensively utilized in the study of biomedical sciences. Current animal experiments and analysis are largely restricted to in vitro measurements and need to sacrifice animals to perform tissue or molecular analysis. This prevents researchers from observing in vivo the natural evolution of the process under study. Imaging techniques can provide repeatedly in vivo anatomic and molecular information noninvasively. Small animal imaging systems have been developed to assess biological process in experimental animals and increasingly employed in the field of molecular imaging studies. This review outlines the current developments in nuclear medicine imaging instrumentations including fused multi-modality imaging systems for small animal imaging.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.6.1-6.4
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• 2022

A 10-year-old, spayed female, Doberman Pinscher dog presented with right forelimb lameness. On physical examination, painful reaction and crepitation were present at the right shoulder. Radiographic evaluation of the shoulder revealed nothing remarkable. On the ultrasonography of the right shoulder joint, 2 small echogenic masses accompanied by reverberation artifacts were observed in the right biceps tendon near its origin at the supraglenoid tuberosity. Based on these findings, we suspected biceps calcifying tendinopathy. Clinical signs resolved intermittently after administration of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. This study described the ultrasonographic findings of calcifying biceps brachii tendinopathy which is an unusual finding in dogs.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.75-79
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• 1999

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an imaging technique used to produce high quality images of the inside of the animal body. MRI is based on the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and started out as a tomographic imaging technique, that is it produced an image of the NMR signal in a thin slice through the animal body. The animal body is primarily fat and water, Fat and water have many hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen nuclei have an NMR signal. For these reasons magnetic resonance imaging primarily images the NMR signal from the hydrogen nuclei. Hydrogen protons, within the body align with the magnetic field. By applying short radio frequency (RF) pulses to a specific anatomical slice, the protons in the slice absorb energy at this resonant frequency causing them to spin perpendicular to the magnetic field. As the protons relax back into alignment with the magnetic field, a signal is received by an RF coil that acts as an antennae. This signal is processed by a computer to produce diagnostic images of the anatomical area of interest.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2013

The process of drug discovery and development requires substantial resources and time. The drug industry has tried to reduce costs by conducting appropriate animal studies together with molecular biological and genetic analyses. Basic science research has been limited to in vitro studies of cellular processes and ex vivo tissue examination using suitable animal models of disease. However, in the past two decades new technologies have been developed that permit the imaging of live animals using radiotracer emission, X-rays, magnetic resonance signals, fluorescence, and bioluminescence. The main objective of this review is to provide an overview of small animal molecular imaging, with a focus on nuclear imaging (single photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography). These technologies permit visualization of toxicodynamics as well as toxicity to specific organs by directly monitoring drug accumulation and assessing physiological and/or molecular alterations. Nuclear imaging technology has great potential for improving the efficiency of the drug development process.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.107-113
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• 2008

We introduce a rotating-gantry-based x-ray micro-tomography system to be used for small animal imaging studies. It has the zoom-in imaging capability for high resolution imaging of a local region inside the animal subject without any contrast anomalies arising from truncation of the projection data. With the sliding mechanism mounted on the rotating gantry holding the x-ray source and the x-ray detector, we can control the magnification ratio of the x-ray projection data. By combining the projection data from the large field of view (FOV) scan of the whole animal subject and the projection data from the small FOV scan of the region of interest, we can obtain artifact-free zoomed-in images of the region of interest. For the acquisition of x-ray projection data, we use a $1248{\times}1248$ flat-panel x-ray detector with the pixel pitch of 100 mm. It has been experimentally found that the developed system has the spatial resolution of up to 121p/mm when the highest magnification ratio of 5:1 is applied to the zoom-in imaging. We present some in vivo rat femur images to demonstrate utility of the developed system for small animal imaging.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.91-95
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• 2020

A 13-year-old, intact male, Yorkshire terrier dog with oliguria and hematuria was presented to the Small Animal Clinic at the Gyeongsang National University animal medical center. There were no remarkable findings on serum chemistry values and complete blood counts. Abdominal radiographs revealed mild elevation of the descending colon at the pelvic level. On the excretory urographic images, a large filling defect was identified in urinary bladder with narrow urinary bladder wall contact and there were no remarkable findings in kidneys and ureters. The abdominal ultrasonography revealed that an irregularly marginated, heterogeneous mass in urinary bladder, central cavitary lesion and mild vascular flow were also observed. Computed tomography showed a heterogeneously attenuated mass within urinary bladder. The mass was surgically excised, and leiomyosarcoma was confirmed by histopathological examination. The patient was followed up for two months and there were no complications. This case is of interest because of the unusual findings of leiomyosarcoma of urinary bladder in a small breed dog.