Quantitative performance characterization of three-dimensional noncontact fluorescence molecular tomography

High-resolution tomographic analysis of in vitro 3D glioblastoma tumor model under long-term drug treatment

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a lethal type of brain tumor that often develop therapeutic resistance over months of chemotherapy cycles. Recently, 3D GBM models were developed to facilitate evaluation of drug treatment before undergoing expensive animal studies. However, for long-term evaluation of therapeutic efficacy, novel approaches for GBM tissue construction are still needed. Moreover, there is still a need to develop fast and sensitive imaging methods for the noninvasive assessment of this 3D constructs and their response to drug treatment. Here, we report on the development of an integrated platform that enable generating (i) an in vitro 3D GBM model with perfused vascular channels that allows long-term culture and drug delivery and (ii) a 3D imaging modality that enables researchers to noninvasively assess longitudinal fluorescent signals over the whole in vitro model.

Fluorescence Imaging as a Tool in Preclinical Evaluation of Polymer-Based Nano-DDS Systems Intended for Cancer Treatment

Targeted drug delivery using nano-sized carrier systems with targeting functions to malignant and inflammatory tissue and tailored controlled drug release inside targeted tissues or cells has been and is still intensively studied. A detailed understanding of the correlation between the pharmacokinetic properties and structure of the nano-sized carrier is crucial for the successful transition of targeted drug delivery nanomedicines into clinical practice. In preclinical research in particular, fluorescence imaging has become one of the most commonly used powerful imaging tools. Increasing numbers of suitable fluorescent dyes that are excitable in the visible to near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths of the spectrum and the non-invasive nature of the method have significantly expanded the applicability of fluorescence imaging. This chapter summarizes non-invasive fluorescence-based imaging methods and discusses their potential advantages and limitations in the field of drug delivery, especially in anticancer therapy. This chapter focuses on fluorescent imaging from the cellular level up to the highly sophisticated three-dimensional imaging modality at a systemic level. Moreover, we describe the possibility for simultaneous treatment and imaging using fluorescence theranostics and the combination of different imaging techniques, e.g., fluorescence imaging with computed tomography.

Signal-to-noise ratio analysis and improvement for fluorescence tomography imaging

CCD-based fluorescence tomography is widely used for small animal whole-body imaging. In this report, systematic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) analyses of a fluorescence tomography imaging (FTI) system were performed, resulting in an easy-to-follow strategy to optimize hardware configurations and operational conditions for acquiring high-quality imaging data and for improving the overall system performance. Phantom experiments were conducted to demonstrate the performance improvement by these optimizations. The improved performance was further verified by imaging a tumor-bearing mouse in vivo. This report provides general and practical guidelines for setting up a high-performance electron multiplying charge coupled device based FTI system to achieve an optimized SNR, which can be useful for future FTI technology development.