Researchers at Philips and Urbino University, Italy, have developed a way to encapsulate magnetic nanoparticles inside blood cells, resulting in a more effective contrast agent for medical imaging. Contrast agents are used to increase the visibility of internal organs, blood vessels or tissue in the images generated by medical scanners. By doing so they help radiologists determine the presence and extent of a disease. Magnetic nanoparticle contrast agents are quickly excreted from the blood via the patient's liver, limiting their application.rnBut the magnetic nanoparticles developed at Urbin are captured inside the patient's own red blood cells, where they remainrnprotected from the body's excretion mechanisms for as long as 120 days. A key feature of the technology is that it could allow the preparation of relatively large volumes of blood loaded with the contrasting agent.
展开▼
