ShEEP Request for Vevo 3100 Imaging System

Va San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego CA

Investigators

Abstract

Medical ultrasound techniques are widely used for pre-clinical investigations. These non-invasive imaging modalities are crucial for researchers to observe changes in organ/tissue structure, size, and blood flow during disease stages as well as in response to pharmacological interventions. The requested equipment is an ultra high-frequency ultrasound machine (Vevo3100, FUJIFILM, VisualSonics) specifically manufactured to image mice, rats, and rabbits. The Vevo 3100 system will be equipped with a linear phased array ultrasound probe specific for animals in the size range of rabbits that is not currently available on our existing equipment. The Vevo 3100 system also has several upgrades in the ultrasound technology including; 1) improved resolution, 2) reduced artifact, 3) real time image processing, 4) left ventricular tracing, 5) improved workflow for rapid data acquisition, 6) speckle tracking analysis (for strain analysis), 7) an imaging station equipped with injection mount (for echo guided tissue injections), and 8) a high throughput analysis. All these functionalities would make this system a necessary part of our goal to produce high quality data in a time and cost efficient manner. Additionally, the Vevo 3100 system with high- resolution ultrasound has applications in nephrology by providing excellent delineation of renal tissues, the technology to quantify and analyze kidney size, and the ability to measure blood flow throughout the pelvic region. The functionality of this novel Vevo 3100 will allow our cardiovascular research groups (Drs. Roth, Patel, Dillmann, Hammond, Ross, and Mahata) as well as our colleagues in the nephrology department (Drs. Sharma, Singh, and Rajasekaran) the opportunities to expand their experimental capabilities.