Vascular imaging with contrast agent in hard and soft tissues using microcomputed‐tomography

Summary Vascularization is essential for many tissues and is a main requisite for various tissue‐engineering strategies. Different techniques are used for highlighting vasculature, in vivo and ex vivo, in 2‐D or 3‐D including histological staining, immunohistochemistry, radiography, angiography, microscopy, computed tomography (CT) or micro‐CT, both stand‐alone and synchrotron system. Vascularization can be studied with or without a contrast agent. This paper presents the results obtained with the latest Skyscan micro‐CT (Skyscan 1272, Bruker, Belgium) following barium sulphate injection replacing the bloodstream in comparison with results obtained with a Skyscan In Vivo 1076. Different hard and soft tissues were perfused with contrast agent and were harvested. Samples were analysed using both forms of micro‐CT, and improved results were shown using this new micro‐CT. This study highlights the vasculature using micro‐CT methods. The results obtained with the Skyscan 1272 are clearly defined compared to results obtained with Skyscan 1076. In particular, this instrument highlights the high number of small vessels, which were not seen before at lower resolution. This new micro‐CT opens broader possibilities in detection and characterization of the 3‐D vascular tree to assess vascular tissue engineering strategies. Lay description Vascularization, essential for life of cells, tissues and organisms is now a main requisite for tissue‐engineering strategy. Some different techniques are used to visualize vascularization. These techniques, in vivo, like radiography, angiography, scanner or ex vivo, using classical research techniques, like histological staining and immunohistochemistry, are frequently used. Also the micro‐Computed Tomography (micro‐CT) is an imaging tool increasingly used. It's a reliable technique, reproducible, accessible and above this is non‐destructive for the sample, requiring no or little sample preparation. In the field of bone study, the micro‐CT is currently a reference tool, even indispensable. In this paper, we wanted to visualize and highlight vascularization of soft tissues as well as hard tissues by using contrast agent injection and micro‐CT study. We therefore tested several techniques of injection and also two contrast agents, Microfil® and barium sulfate. For this study, barium sulfate was injected in rats and samples were after studied by micro‐CT. This article shows images of vascularization of soft and hard tissues after bariu