In the first part of the talk, a brief overview of the research carried out by
the Cancer Imaging Laboratory at the Center for Applied Medical Research will be
given. A number of tools developed for image acquisition and analysis for the
early detection, follow up and characterization of cancer and related diseases
will be described.

In the second part of the talk, our work on the radiological characterization of
mice models of lung disease will be presented. First, an in-house protocol for
radiological image acquisition is presented. The protocol includes endotracheal
intubation, pulmonary function tests and iso-pressure breath holds for movement
artifact reduction. Chest micro-CT image segmentation and analysis methods have
been developed to quantify the effects of disease and monitor disease
development. They have been applied to characterize the dynamic evolution of
three relevant mouse models of lung disease: elastase-induced emphysema,
silica-induced chronic pulmonary inflammation and urethane-induced lung cancer
combined with emphysema. Apart from micro-CT, other techniques have also been
used to complement the data. Results show the usefulness of micro-CT and
automated image analysis for the longitudinal monitoring of pulmonary disease
progression which could be particularly relevant in treatment testing.