Dynamic contrast-enhanced photoacoustic imaging using photothermal stimuli-responsive composite nanomodulators.

ABSTRACT: Molecular photoacoustic imaging has shown great potential in medical applications; its sensitivity is normally in pico-to-micro-molar range, dependent on exogenous imaging agents. However, tissue can produce strong background signals, which mask the signals from the imaging agents, resulting in orders of magnitude sensitivity reduction. As such, an elaborate spectral scan is often required to spectrally un-mix the unwanted background signals. Here we show a new single-wavelength photoacoustic dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging technique by employing a stimuli-responsive contrast agent. Our technique can eliminate intrinsic background noises without significant hardware or computational resources. We show that this new contrast agent can generate up to 30 times stronger photoacoustic signals

SUBMITTER: Chen YS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5472754 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature