Author/Authors :
Liu, Yapu Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Liu, Qi Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Yang, Zhou Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Lin, Junyu Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Wu, Xiuhua Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Huang, Zucheng Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Liu, Junhao Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Li, Rong Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Huang, Zhiping Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Wu, Xiaoliang Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China , Zhu, Qingan Department of Spinal Surgery - Nanfang Hospital - Southern Medical University - Guangzhou, China
Abstract :
Barium sulfate and lead oxide are commonly used for angiographic studies, but there is no report on the comparison of
two contrast agents in angiography of cervical spinal cord. This study was aimed to compare the microvascular architecture of
cervical spinal cord in rats after angiography with the barium sulfate agent to the lead oxide agent. Methods. Twelve adult
Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into the barium sulfate group (n = 6) and the lead oxide group (n = 6). Each rat
was perfused under the same protocol using either two contrast agents. The angiography was evaluated with the vascular
number at different ranks. The cervical spinal cord samples were scanned using micro-CT with low resolution and high
resolution. The microvascular parameters, including ratio of vascular volume to tissue volume (VV/TV), vascular number
(V.N), diameter (V.Dm), separation (V.Sp), connectivity density (Conn.D), structure model index (SMI), percentage, and
volume of vessels at different diameters were measured. Results. The perfusion was better in the barium sulfate group, with
more blood vessel trees of rank II and III visible compared to the lead oxide group. Low-resolution micro-CT analysis showed
no difference in microvascular parameters except SMI between the two groups. High-resolution micro-CT analysis results
showed that V.N and Conn.D of barium sulfate group were 60% and 290% more than those of the lead oxide group; however,
V.Sp was 41% less than the lead oxide group. The percentage of vessels with diameter of 10 μm and 20 μm, and the volume of
vessels with diameter of less than 100 μm was higher in the barium sulfate group than in the lead oxide group. The SMI index in
the barium sulfate group was higher than that in the lead oxide group at both low resolution and high resolution. Conclusions.
Compared with lead oxide, barium sulfate is more suitable for perfusion of cervical spinal cord microvessels, and cheap and
nontoxic with high resolution.
Keywords :
Micro-CT , SMI , fundamentally , body
