Ultrasonography

Ultrasonography uses sound waves, which are transmitted in soft tissues, to produce pictures of the inside of the body. Ultrasound imaging is widely used in clinical research, with advantages including a lack of ionizing radiation, non-invasive operation, intuitive images, and affordability. Small animal ultrasound images most commonly use B-mode (brightness mode) greyscale scanning to capture diagnostic images. This diagnostic imaging method is used in various fields of small animal in vivo imaging research, such as cardiology, oncology, reproduction and development, neurobiology, stem cell research, pathotoxicology, pharmacology, nanobiology, and others.

Ultrasound Imaging (UI) Services

Ultrasonography may be used to image various organs in small animals, including mice and rats, with greatly improved image clarity as compared with medical ultrasound.

Service Process

1.Cyagen provides the experimental animals or customer transports the animals to our company.

2.Our staff performs ultrasound imaging according to customer requirements.

3.Images and test data are provided to the customer.

Example Case: Postoperative Echocardiographic Assessment of Transverse Aortic Constriction (TAC) in Rats and Mice

The echocardiography indicates the heart rate is decreased in anesthetized animals. Cyagen’s for cardiac ultrasound detection service works for heart rates of 500-550 beats/min and can even evaluate animals in an awake state to reflect the real-time heart function.

Fig 1. Ultrasound image of C57BL/6 mouse heart

Fig 2. Ultrasound image of C57BL/6 mouse heart 4 weeks after TAC surgery
(compensatory hypertrophy of the left ventricular myocardium)

Fig 3. Ultrasound at 12-14 weeks after TAC surgery
(heart failure index is EF-ejection fraction, FS-fractional shortening)