University of Minnesota, Department of Biomedical Engineering, 7-105 Hasselmo Hall, 312 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
J Biomed Opt. 2013 Jul;18(7):076019. doi: 10.1117/1.JBO.18.7.076019.
Tumor hypoxia is an important factor in assessment of both cancer progression and cancer treatment efficacy. This has driven a substantial effort toward development of imaging modalities that can directly measure oxygen distribution and therefore hypoxia in tissue. Although several approaches to measure hypoxia exist, direct measurement of tissue oxygen through an imaging approach is still an unmet need. To address this, we present a new approach based on in vivo application of photoacoustic lifetime imaging (PALI) to map the distribution of oxygen partial pressure (pO2) in tissue. This method utilizes methylene blue, a dye widely used in clinical applications, as an oxygen-sensitive imaging agent. PALI measurement of oxygen relies upon pO2-dependent excitation lifetime of the dye. A multimodal imaging system was designed and built to achieve ultrasound (US), photoacoustic, and PALI imaging within the same system. Nude mice bearing LNCaP xenograft hindlimb tumors were used as the target tissue. Hypoxic regions were identified within the tumor in a combined US/PALI image. Finally, the statistical distributions of pO2 in tumor, normal, and control tissues were compared with measurements by a needle-mounted oxygen probe. A statistically significant drop in mean pO2 was consistently detected by both methods in tumors.
肿瘤缺氧是评估癌症进展和癌症治疗效果的一个重要因素。这促使人们大力开发能够直接测量组织中氧气分布和缺氧情况的成像方式。尽管有几种方法可以测量缺氧,但通过成像方式直接测量组织中的氧气仍然是一个未满足的需求。为了解决这个问题,我们提出了一种新的方法,基于体内应用光声寿命成像(PALI)来绘制组织中氧分压(pO2)的分布。该方法利用亚甲蓝作为氧敏成像剂,亚甲蓝是一种广泛应用于临床应用的染料。PALI 测量氧气依赖于染料的 pO2 依赖性激发寿命。设计并构建了一种多模态成像系统,可在同一系统中实现超声(US)、光声和 PALI 成像。使用携带 LNCaP 异种移植后肢肿瘤的裸鼠作为目标组织。在联合 US/PALI 图像中识别肿瘤内的缺氧区域。最后,将肿瘤、正常和对照组织中的 pO2 统计分布与氧探针的测量结果进行了比较。两种方法都一致地检测到肿瘤中 pO2 的平均值明显下降。