Monitoring treatment effects in lung cancer-bearing mice: clinical CT and clinical MRI compared to micro-CT

Background Compared to histology-based methods, imaging can reduce animal usage in preclinical studies. However, availability of dedicated scanners is limited. We evaluated clinical computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in comparison to dedicated CT (micro-CT) for assessing therapy effects in lung cancer-bearing mice. Methods Animals received cisplatin ( n = 10), sham ( n = 12), or no treatment ( n = 9). All were examined via micro-CT, CT, and MRI before and after treatment. Semiautomated tumour burden (TB) calculation was performed. The Bland-Altman, receiver operating characteristic (ROC), and Spearman statistics were used. Results All modalities always allowed localising and measuring TB. At all modalities, mice treated with cisplatin showed a TB reduction ( p ≤ 0.012) while sham-treated and untreated individuals presented tumour growth ( p < 0.001). Mean relative difference (limits of agreement) between TB on micro-CT and clinical scanners was 24.7% (21.7–27.7%) for CT and 2.9% (−4.0–9.8%) for MRI. Relative TB changes before/after treatment were not different between micro-CT and CT ( p = 0.074) or MRI ( p = 0.241). Mice with cisplatin treatment were discriminated from those with sham or no treatment at all modalities ( p ≤ 0.001). Using micro-CT as reference standard, ROC areas under the curves were 0.988–1.000 for CT and 0.946–0.957 for MRI. TB changes were highly correlated across modalities ( r ≥ 0.900, p < 0.001). Conclusions Clinical CT and MRI are suitable for treatment response evaluation in lung cancer-bearing mice. When dedicated scanners are unavailable, they should be preferred to improve animal welfare.