Polypyrrole-Coated Perfluorocarbon Nanoemulsions as a Sono-Photoacoustic Contrast Agent.

ABSTRACT: A new contrast agent for combined photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging is presented. It has a liquid perfluorocarbon (PFC) core of about 250 nm diameter coated by a 30 nm thin polypyrrole (PPy) doped polymer shell emulsion that represents a broadband absorber covering the visible and near-infrared ranges (peak optical extinction at 1050 nm). When exposed to a sufficiently high intensity optical or acoustic pulse, the droplets vaporize to form microbubbles providing a strong increase in imaging sensitivity and specificity. The threshold for contrast agent activation can further drastically be reduced by up to 2 orders of magnitude if simultaneously exposing them with optical and acoustic pulses. The selection of PFC core liquids with low boiling points (i.e., perfluorohexane (56 °C), perflu

SUBMITTER: Li DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5636685 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature