Echocardiography System for Laboratory Rodents

正在进行的心血管研究计划和合作项目正在分析尿毒症心肌病和心力衰竭以及心肌梗死和血管钙化的动物模型。我们最近发起的联盟的核心重点是了解慢性肾脏疾病的心血管病理生理，包括血管和心脏重塑。鉴于对心脏功能体内测量的需求不断增长，以及在各种其他研究项目中，迫切需要一种新型的超声设备，这种设备可以对心脏和脉管系统进行高分辨率成像，并包括彩色双工模式和斑点跟踪软件，以检测慢性肾脏疾病中通常发生的心脏收缩性的微小变化。然而，在亚琛大学医院，目前可用的系统自2013年以来已经退出市场，由于其低分辨率和缺少彩色双工超声，不再被认为是最先进的。因此，在上述项目中，迫切需要一种先进的超高频超声系统来分析心脏和血管功能。该系统的集成散斑跟踪应用程序、彩色多普勒和新的3D到4D模式将使所有项目合作伙伴所需的心血管参数评估达到最先进的水平。在高分辨率超声的支持下，我们的目标是开发针对早期尿毒症心脏和血管改变的治疗方法。

Ongoing cardiovascular research initiatives and collaborative projects are analyzing animal models for uremic cardiomyopathy and heart failure as well as myocardial infarction and vascular calcification. Our recently initiated consortium has the core focus to understand cardiovascular pathophysiology in chronic kidney disease including vascular and cardiac remodeling. Given the growing demand on in vivo measurements of cardiac function within the initiative but also at various other research projects a novel state of the are ultrasound device that allows high-resolution imaging of the heart as well as the vasculature and includes color-duplex mode and speckle tracking software to detect minor changes in cardiac contractility, as typically occurring in chronic kidney disease, is urgently needed. However, at University Hospital Aachen, the currently available system is off the market since 2013 and not anymore considered state of the art due to its low resolution and missing color duplex sonography. Therefore, a state of the art ultra high frequency ultrasound system is urgently needed to analyze cardiac and vascular function in the above mentioned projects. The integrated speckle tracking application, the color doppler and the new 3D to 4D mode of the system applied for additionally will enable state of the art evaluation of cardiovascular parameters needed by all project partners. With the support of a high resolution ultrasound, we aim to develop therapies against early uremic cardiac and vascular changes.