Detection and Description of Tissue Disease: Advances in the Use of Nanomedicine for Medical Imaging - Harnessing Biomaterials in Nanomedicine: Preparation, Toxicity, and Applications - page 256

quantitative and qualitative agreement between the localization of
microbubbles in infarcted inflamed tissue and reference methods
used to detect and quantify inflammation: 99m Tc-RP517 was used to
detect neutrophils and TTC staining to describe viable tissue. This
method has also been used to detect inflammation in renal ischemia-
reperfusion injury [36].
8.3.4 TargetingCancer
Ellegala et al. [37] used the peptide echistatin to target
microbubbles to neovasculature expressing the integrin α v β 3 . The
targeted microbubbles were retained preferentially within the
microvasculature of intracerebrally implanted U87MG tumors (i.e.,
orthotopic) as detected by confocal microscopy of fluorescently
labeled microbubbles. Ultrasound imaging was carried out 10 min
after bolus injection of targeted microbubbles and increased contrast
was observed between 14 and 28 days post tumor inoculation. Leong-
Poi et al . [38] also reported targeting of angiogenesis for ultrasound
detection using both echistatin and an anti- α v integrin antibody to
achieve significant increases in US contrast compared with controls.
The animal model used by these investigators was based on the
injection of the proangiogenic factor FGF into the cremaster muscle
to stimulate vessel development. FGF can also be used to stimulate
vessel development in infarcted myocardial muscle, presenting
the opportunity to monitor the response of injured tissue to this
therapeutic agents using ultrasound. In another example, Lui et al.
[39] demonstrated in vitro targeting of polylactic-acid-based UCAs
using the anti-HER2 antibody Herceptin as the targeting agent and
observed an increase in echogenicity by HER2-antigen-positive cells.
8.4 Summary
The increasing personalization of medicine and its increasing ability to
specifically target appropriate medicines to ever-smaller populations
of patients demands a corresponding improvement in our ability to
more precisely characterize and describe disease. Medical imaging
off ers the opportunity to detect, describe, and, in some cases, treat
disease, as well as the ability to monitor the response of diseased
tissue to therapy. Here we have briefly considered some aspects of
the development of contrast agents for both computed tomography