(ChemotherapyAdvisor) – Collaboration between researchers from several major medical institutions, including, but not limited to, Stanford University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, has led to the development of a new imaging tool for detecting brain tumors, according a recently published paper entitled “A brain tumor molecular imaging strategy using a new triple-modality MRI-photoacoustic-Raman nanoparticle”, which was published online in Nature Medicine on April 15.
The researchers aimed to develop an imaging method that is capable of delineating brain tumor margins, a major obstacle in the path toward better outcomes for patients with brain tumors; this method would be developed with better sensitivity, specificity, and spatial resolution than the current methods.
The authors demonstrate that using a triple-modality magnetic resonance imaging–photoacoustic imaging–Raman imaging nanoparticle (referred to as MPR nanoparticle) can accurately help delineate the margins of brain tumors in living mice both preoperatively and intraoperatively. “The MPRs were detected by all three modalities with at least picomolar sensitivity both in vitro and in living mice. Intravenous injection of MPRs into glioblastoma-bearing mice led to MPR accumulation and retention by the tumors, with no MPR accumulation in the surrounding healthy tissue, allowing for a noninvasive tumor delineation using all three modalities through the intact skull,” the authors wrote.
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The authors concluded: “This new triple-modality–nanoparticle approach has promise for enabling more accurate brain tumor imaging and resection.”
