Superparamagnetic nanoparticle-inclusion microbubbles for ultrasound contrast agents
- 14 October 2008
- journal article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Physics in Medicine & Biology
- Vol. 53 (21), 6129-6141
- https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/53/21/016
Abstract
We have developed a new type of ultrasound (US) contrast agent, consisting of a gas core, a layer of superparamagnetic iron oxide Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles (SPIO) and an oil in water outermost layer. The newly developed US contrast agent microbubbles have a mean diameter of 760 nm with a polydisperity index (PI) of 0.699. Our in vitro and in vivo experiments have shown that they have the following advantages compared to gas-encapsulated microbbubbles without SPIO inclusion: (1) they provide better contrast for US images; (2) the SPIO-inclusion microbubbles generate a higher backscattering signal; the mean grey scale is 97.9, which is 38.6 higher than that of microbubbles without SPIO; and (3) since SPIO can also serve as a contrast agent of magnetic resonance images (MRI) in vitro, they can be potentially used as contrast agents for double-modality (MRI and US) clinical studies.Keywords
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