Automatization and improvement of μCT analysis for murine lung disease models using a deep learning approach

BACKGROUND: One of the main diagnostic tools for lung diseases in humans is computed tomography (CT). A miniaturized version, micro-CT (μCT) is utilized to examine small rodents including mice. However, fully automated threshold-based segmentation and subsequent quantification of severely damaged lungs requires visual inspection and manual correction. METHODS: Here we demonstrate the use of densitometry on regions of interest (ROI) in automatically detected portions of the lung, thus avoiding the need for lung segmentation. Utilizing deep learning approaches, the middle part of the lung is found in a μCT-stack and a ROI is placed in the left and the right lobe. RESULTS: The intensity values within the ROIs of the μCT images were collected and subsequently used for the calculation of different lung-related parameters, such as mean lung attenuation (MLA), mode, full width at half maximum (FWHM), and skewness. For validation, the densitometric approach was correlated with histological readouts (Ashcroft Score, Mean Linear Intercept). CONCLUSION: We here show an automated tool that allows rapid and in-depth analysis of μCT scans of different murine models of lung disease.