SAC Research

X-ray computed tomography (CT) is a non-invasive imaging technique and has a wide range of applications from its use in diagnostics to in vivo and post mortem measurements of body and carcass composition in various mammal species (“from mouse to cow”).

It was initially developed for use in human diagnostic medicine, and was introduced to radiology during the 1930’s.

It revolutionised the medical x-ray field with its unprecedented ability to visualize the anatomical structures of the body. It presents enormous opportunities in livestock research as it provides accurate means of assessing body/carcass composition, muscularity, spine characteristics, organ and tissue volumes and densities as well as components of meat quality traits.

CT has therefore the potential for numerous applications in agricultural research from nutritional studies to its use in providing detailed phenotypes in genome wide selection approaches.

CT scanning has also the potential to replace the existing “gold standard” for measuring body composition: dissection or butchery, which is labour intensive, expensive, has subjective elements and is less accurate than CT scanning. CT is also not cheap and requires consideration of metrological aspects (e.g. harmonisation of protocols, software and the development of special phantoms for calibration) before it can be fully used as fully approved benchmarking method.

Cheaper and faster methods measuring compositional traits with the potential of being integrated into the slaughter line (e.g. 2D and 3 D ultrasound scanning, video image analysis, Fat-O-Meter) can be benchmarked against CT.

This talk will present the impact and use of CT in breeding and carcass evaluation in different farm animal species with a special focus on sheep breeding and research in the UK. It will also discuss metrological aspects and give an outlook at recent developments in the field.