Feasibility of Dual Optics/Ultrasound Imaging and Contrast Media for the Detection and Characterization of Prostate Cancer; Annual rept. 26 Feb 2007-25 Feb 2008

摘要

This research project focuses on prostate cancer, a devastating socioeconomic disease, whose detection is plagued with inadequate sensitivity and specificity. Hypoxia is the hallmark of malignancy because aggressive cancers outgrow their blood supply. We ultimately aim to build an instrument that combines OPtics and UltraSound (OPUS) to quantify hypoxia via optical imaging but with the improved spatial resolution of US imaging. Specifically, the acousto-optic effect will be used to only modulate light (at the ultrasound frequency) which propagates through a small ultrasound focal zone. This DOD Idea Development Award is concerned with the development of a novel acousto- optic detection idea based on quadrature measurements with a gain-modulated image intensified CCD camera. Furthermore, we proposed the novel idea of using microbubble-based contrast agents to significantly increase the light modulation and, moreover, the use of fluorescent microbubbles to provide additional enhancement. During the first year of the research project we have demonstrated the detection of ultrasound-modulated incoherent photons followed by the novel quadrature detection of ultrasound-modulated photons and fluorescence photons with the gain-modulated image intensified CCD camera approach. This research demonstrates the potential to perform acousto-optic molecular imaging of prostate cancer with incoherent and fluorescence photons using endogenous contrast, e.g. hypoxia, and also fluorescent probes.