Sevick-Muraca Eva M, Fife Caroline E, Rasmussen John C
Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States.
Department of Geriatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States.
Front Physiol. 2023 Mar 15;14:1132097. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1132097. eCollection 2023.
The lymphatics play important roles in chronic diseases/conditions that comprise the bulk of healthcare worldwide. Yet the ability to routinely image and diagnose lymphatic dysfunction, using commonly available clinical imaging modalities, has been lacking and as a result, the development of effective treatment strategies suffers. Nearly two decades ago, investigational near-infrared fluorescence lymphatic imaging and ICG lymphography were developed as routine diagnostic for clinically evaluating, quantifying, and treating lymphatic dysfunction in cancer-related and primary lymphedema, chronic venous disease, and more recently, autoimmune and neurodegenerative disorders. In this review, we provide an overview of what these non-invasive technologies have taught us about lymphatic (dys) function and anatomy in human studies and in corollary animal studies of human disease. We summarize by commenting on new impactful clinical frontiers in lymphatic science that remain to be facilitated by imaging.
淋巴管在构成全球大部分医疗保健内容的慢性疾病中发挥着重要作用。然而，一直缺乏使用常用临床成像方式对淋巴功能障碍进行常规成像和诊断的能力，因此，有效治疗策略的开发受到影响。近二十年前，研究性近红外荧光淋巴成像和吲哚菁绿淋巴管造影被开发出来，作为临床评估、量化和治疗癌症相关和原发性淋巴水肿、慢性静脉疾病以及最近的自身免疫性和神经退行性疾病中淋巴功能障碍的常规诊断方法。在这篇综述中，我们概述了这些非侵入性技术在人体研究以及人类疾病的相应动物研究中，让我们对淋巴（功能）障碍和解剖学有了哪些了解。我们通过评论淋巴科学中仍有待成像技术推动的新的有影响力的临床前沿领域来进行总结。
