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Targeted blue nanoparticles as photoacoustic contrast agent for brain tumor delineation

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Abstract

Distinguishing a tumor from non-neoplastic tissue is a challenging task during cancer surgery. Several attempts have been made to use visible or fluorescent agents to aid in the visualization of a tumor during surgery. We describe a novel method to delineate brain tumors, using a highly sensitive photoacoustic imaging technique that is enhanced by tumor-targeting blue nanoparticles serving as a contrast agent. Experiments on phantoms and on rat brains, ex vivo, demonstrate the high sensitivity of photoacoustic imaging in delineating tumors containing contrast agent at a concentration much lower than needed for visualization by the naked eye. The limit of detection of the system for the nanoparticles is about 0.77 μg/mL in water (equivalent to 0.84 μmol/L Coomassie Blue dye). The present exploratory study suggests that photoacoustic imaging, when used with strongly optical absorbing contrast agents, could facilitate cancer surgery intraoperatively by revealing the distribution and extent of the tumor.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biophysics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Aniruddha Ray & Raoul Kopelman

  2. Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Xueding Wang

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Yong-Eun Koo Lee, Hoe Jin Hah, Gwangseong Kim & Raoul Kopelman

  4. Department of Neurosurgery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Thomas Chen, Daniel A. Orringer & Oren Sagher

  5. Institute of Acoustics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Xiaojun Liu

Authors
  1. Aniruddha Ray
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  2. Xueding Wang
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  3. Yong-Eun Koo Lee
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  4. Hoe Jin Hah
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  5. Gwangseong Kim
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  6. Thomas Chen
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  7. Daniel A. Orringer
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  8. Oren Sagher
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  9. Xiaojun Liu
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  10. Raoul Kopelman
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xueding Wang or Raoul Kopelman.

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Ray, A., Wang, X., Lee, YE.K. et al. Targeted blue nanoparticles as photoacoustic contrast agent for brain tumor delineation. Nano Res. 4, 1163–1173 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-011-0166-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-011-0166-1

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