Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) provides valuable data for studying soft tissue, though it is often affected by sample movement during scans and low contrast in X-ray absorption. This can result in lower image quality and geometric inaccuracies, collectively known as 'artefacts'. To mitigate these issues, samples can be embedded in hydrogels and enriched with heavy metals for contrast enhancement. However, the long-term durability of these enhancements remains largely unexplored. In this study, we examine the effects of two contrast enhancement agents – iodine and phosphotungstic acid (PTA) – and two hydrogels – agarose and Poloxamer 407 – over a 14-day period. We used Drosophila melanogaster as a test model for our investigation. Our findings reveal that PTA and agarose are highly durable, while iodine and poloxamer hydrogel exhibits higher leakage rates. These observations lay the foundation for estimating contrast stabilities in contrast-enhanced micro-CT with hydrogel embedding and serve to inform future research in this field.

微型计算机断层扫描 (micro-CT) 为研究软组织提供了有价值的数据，尽管它经常受到扫描过程中样本移动和 X 射线吸收对比度低的影响。这可能会导致图像质量下降和几何不准确，统称为“伪影”。为了缓解这些问题，可以将样品嵌入水凝胶中并富含重金属以增强对比度。然而，这些增强功能的长期耐用性在很大程度上仍未得到探索。在这项研究中，我们研究了两种对比增强剂（碘和磷钨酸 (PTA)）以及两种水凝胶（琼脂糖和泊洛沙姆 407）在 14 天的时间内的效果。我们使用果蝇作为我们研究的测试模型。我们的研究结果表明，PTA 和琼脂糖具有高度耐用性，而碘和泊洛沙姆水凝胶则表现出更高的泄漏率。这些观察结果为估计水凝胶嵌入对比增强显微 CT 中的对比稳定性奠定了基础，并为该领域的未来研究提供了信息。