The injection of microspheres into the blood stream has been a common method to measure the spatial distribution of blood flow (perfusion). A technique to conduct this kind of measurement in small animal organs is presented using silver-coated microspheres with a diameter of 16 µm and highresolution computed tomography (microCT) to detect individual microspheres. Phantom experiments demonstrate the detectability of individual spheres. The distribution of microspheres within a rat heart is given as an example. Using non-destructive, three-dimensional imaging for microsphere detection avoids the cumbersome dissection of the organ into samples or slices and their subsequent registration. The detection of individual spheres allows highresolution measurements of perfusion and arbitrary definition of regions of interest. These, in turn, allow for accurate statistical analysis of perfusion such as relative dispersion curves.
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