Nanoparticles for concurrent multimodality imaging and therapy: the dawn of new theragnostic synergies

G Lucignani - European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular …, 2009 - Springer
European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, 2009Springer
Molecular and cellular imaging is a new branch of the biomedical sciences born of the
merging of two areas: detection technology (ie scanners and imaging devices) and the
probes (radioactive, luminescent, paramagnetic, etc.) that make imaging possible. It is also a
multidisciplinary field in which multiple image-capture techniques, basic cell/molecular
biology, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology, medical physics, biomathematics and
bioinformatics all converge in a new imaging paradigm. The great advantage of in vivo …
Molecular and cellular imaging is a new branch of the biomedical sciences born of the merging of two areas: detection technology (ie scanners and imaging devices) and the probes (radioactive, luminescent, paramagnetic, etc.) that make imaging possible. It is also a multidisciplinary field in which multiple image-capture techniques, basic cell/molecular biology, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology, medical physics, biomathematics and bioinformatics all converge in a new imaging paradigm. The great advantage of in vivo molecular imaging is its ability to depict cellular and molecular processes and disease mechanisms present in physiologically authentic environments. These are all points underlined by Massoud of the Department of Radiology, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, UK, and
Gambhir of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), Jarrett et al., of the Department of Radiology, Bio-X Program, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA [2]. As recently pointed out also by a French group (Alric et al., of the Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie des Matériaux Luminescents, UMR 5620 CNRS-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France), molecular imaging is a highly sophisticated and complex process requiring probes and contrast agents that must have adequate pharmacokinetic properties and low levels of non-specific accumulation in the body [3]. These authors draw attention to the use of nanoparticles as agents for medical imaging, an important development since, having a longer vascular half-life than molecular contrast agents, they remain detectable for longer after their in vivo administration. Indeed, whereas rapid elimination of contrast agents is desirable in clinical diagnostic imaging, a longer circulation time can be exploited for monitoring the biodistribution of drugs. Another great advantage of nanoparticles over molecular contrast agents, also highlighted by these authors, is the fact that, possessing several complementary features, they can be detected by different in vivo imaging techniques used concurrently. Nanoparticles that allow combined fluorescence imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are probably the most frequently studied because they unite the high sensitivity of the fluorescence phenomenon with the high spatial resolution of MRI.
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