Close Menu
  • News
  • Medical
  • Technology
  • Nanomaterials
  • Research
  • Blog
    • Nasiol.com
  • Contact
    • Tech7685@gmail.com
What's Hot

Depositing quantum dots on corrugated chips improves photodetector capabilities

May 8, 2025

Ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification restores stainless steel’s corrosion resistance

May 7, 2025

Structure dictates effectiveness and safety in nanomedicine, driving therapeutic innovation, say scientists

May 7, 2025
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
Nanotech – Nanomaterials | Medical | Research | News Stories Updated Daily Nanotech – Nanomaterials | Medical | Research | News Stories Updated Daily
  • News
  • Medical
  • Technology
  • Nanomaterials
  • Research
  • Blog
    • Nasiol.com
  • Contact
    • Tech7685@gmail.com
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
Nanotech – Nanomaterials | Medical | Research | News Stories Updated Daily Nanotech – Nanomaterials | Medical | Research | News Stories Updated Daily
Home»News»Scientists marry MRI, ultrasound, and optoacoustics for improved medical exams
News

Scientists marry MRI, ultrasound, and optoacoustics for improved medical exams

October 4, 2023No Comments5 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Telegram LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp Email
Scientists marry MRI, ultrasound, and optoacoustics for improved medical exams
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Telegram Email
The researchers administered an injection of their multimodal contrast agent to a mouse via the tail vein and confirmed that the “loaded microbubbles” provided sufficient contrast for magnetic resonance, ultrasound, and optoacoustic imaging. Credit: Elizaveta Maksimova et al./Laser & Photonics Reviews

Physicians and researchers rely on biomedical imaging to examine the structure and function of living tissue. This enables disease diagnostics and experiments that reveal the mechanisms behind pathologies and ways to treat them. The most popular techniques for radiation-free imaging are ultrasound and MRI scans. Optoacoustics, on the other hand, is a promising emerging approach only recently introduced into clinical practice.

Now, Skoltech researchers and their Swiss and Chinese colleagues have managed to marry these distinct imaging techniques by devising a universal contrast agent—an injectable drug that simultaneously works with all three approaches. The new agent could make diagnostics faster and more accurate, while reducing examination cost, the number of injections, and the dosage necessary.

Besides enabling high-contrast visualization, the team’s “loaded microbubbles” could even be used in the future to deliver drugs into the brain of a patient with Parkinson’s or a tumor. The findings are reported in Laser & Photonics Reviews.

The researchers used a technology known as layer-by-layer deposition to make microbubbles loaded with indocyanine green dye and magnetite nanoparticles. The dye can absorb light and emit detectable sound waves, which is how optoacoustics works. And the nanoparticles of magnetite, an oxide of iron, enhance contrast during MRI exams. The bubbles themselves serve as a contrast agent for ultrasound studies, and because they are filled with liquid—a nanodroplet of perfluoropentane—rather than gas, increased stability is achieved.

The team carried out experiments on mice and made sure that the microbubbles exhibited contrast in all three modes of medical imaging. Cytotoxicity tests showed the agent is biocompatible.

See also  An argument for applying medical insights to agriculture

“The individual contrast agents used in any given imaging technique have their advantages, but by bringing them together we make them complement each other. This translates, among other things, into higher sensitivity and better imaging resolution. And we reduce invasiveness, because where you used to require three separate injections, now you only need one,” one of the study’s two lead authors, Daniil Nozdriukhin, said.

“Also, with the microbubbles, the circulation times of both the nanoparticles and the dye in the body are way longer, which means there is more time to get a high-quality image. The stability and longevity of the liquid-core bubbles is an added benefit on top of that.”

Scientists marry MRI, ultrasound, and optoacoustics for better medical exams
A schematic representation (left) and a scanning electron microscopy image (right) of a nanodroplet of perfluoropentane (PFP) loaded with indocyanine green (ICG) dye and magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles. BSA stands for bovine serum albumin, a protein used together with tannic acid (TA) to stabilize the bubble. Polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) and poly-L-arginine (pArg) are the negatively and positively charged polymers required for layer-by-layer (LbL) deposition. OA, MRI, and US stand for the three visualization techniques: optoacoustics, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound. Credit: Elizaveta Maksimova et al./Laser & Photonics Reviews

A further tentative application of the new contrast agent is magnetic resonance and optoacoustic imaging of the brain. The problem with visualizing the brain is that the so-called blood-brain barrier only allows a select few molecules from the bloodstream to enter the brain: oxygen, nutrients, hormones, etc.

The barrier shuts out all manner of germs and large molecules, including contrast agents and most drugs. It can be opened by generating gas bubbles inside blood vessels with ultrasound. This, however, harms the surrounding tissue. Fortunately, it is possible to make do with a much lower intensity by using focused ultrasound on microbubbles, and this is where the team’s multifunctional contrast agent comes in.

“With one agent bringing together both the microbubbles, sensitive to ultrasound, for opening the blood-brain barrier and the contrast materials for MRI and optoacoustic imaging, a single injection will suffice for a brain exam, and you get the additional benefit of extended circulation into the bargain,” lead author of the study, Elizaveta Maksimova said.

See also  Scientists grow human mini-lungs as animal alternative for nanomaterial safety testing

“What’s more, the liquid-core microbubbles can withstand ultrasound exposure without bursting for much longer than the conventional gas-core microbubbles, holding the barrier open for prolonged periods of time so that the dose of the contrast agent in the injection can be lowered.”

“Also, once you have this effective and safe way to open the blood-brain barrier, you can go beyond pure diagnostics and enhance the bubbles by loading them with a drug via the same layer-by-layer deposition approach. Such integration of therapeutic agents and those used for diagnostics is known as theranostics,” added the study’s principal investigator Professor Dmitry Gorin, who heads the Biophotonics Lab at Skoltech Photonics.

“This approach can be applied for the MRI-guided minimally invasive treatment of glioblastoma [the most aggressive and most common type of cancer that originates in the brain].”

How layer-by-layer deposition works

Bubbles filled with perfluoropentane—a liquid at room temperature—are stabilized with a protein and immersed in a series of water solutions. The particles from each successive solution are deposited as an additional shell on the microbubble, provided that compounds with positively and negatively charged inorganic particles or organic molecules are alternated.

The electrostatic interaction holds the shells together. In the study reported in this story, the deposited layers contained contrast agents for MRI and optoacoustic imaging, but the same procedure can be used with therapeutic agents.

Provided by
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology



Source link

exams improved marry Medical MRI optoacoustics Scientists ultrasound
Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

Depositing quantum dots on corrugated chips improves photodetector capabilities

May 8, 2025

Ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification restores stainless steel’s corrosion resistance

May 7, 2025

Structure dictates effectiveness and safety in nanomedicine, driving therapeutic innovation, say scientists

May 7, 2025

How Can Nanomaterials Be Programmed for Different Applications?

May 6, 2025

Ultrafast plasmon-enhanced magnetic bit switching at the nanoscale

May 6, 2025

Modular protein adapter technology enables exosome-based precision drug delivery

May 6, 2025

Comments are closed.

Top Articles

Inhalable sensors could enable early lung cancer detection

News

Quantum Dot Size Measurements with NIR Dynamic Light Scattering

Research

Innovative Approaches to Predicting Nanostructure Formation

Editors Picks

Depositing quantum dots on corrugated chips improves photodetector capabilities

May 8, 2025

Ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification restores stainless steel’s corrosion resistance

May 7, 2025

Structure dictates effectiveness and safety in nanomedicine, driving therapeutic innovation, say scientists

May 7, 2025

How Can Nanomaterials Be Programmed for Different Applications?

May 6, 2025
About Us
About Us

Your go-to source for the latest nanotechnology breakthroughs. Explore innovations, applications, and implications shaping the future at the molecular level. Stay informed, embrace the nano-revolution.

We're accepting new partnerships right now.

Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
Our Picks

Nanoparticles damage coronavirus in unexpected way, paving way for new disinfection technology

February 10, 2025

Scientists observe composite superstructure growth from nanocrystals in real time

November 15, 2023

New Approaches for Drug Delivery

September 11, 2024

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative Nano Tech news from Elnano.com

© 2025 Elnano.com - All rights reserved.
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Cleantalk Pixel