C5.3 - Sonographic Detection of Nanoparticles used for Magnetic Drug Targeting
- Event
- AMA Conferences 2015
2015-05-19 - 2015-05-21
Nürnberg, Germany - Band
- Proceedings SENSOR 2015
- Chapter
- C5 - Medical Systems
- Author(s)
- M. Fink, H. Ermert, M. Löffler, A. Sutor, B. Tewes, A. Koch - Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), C. Alexiou, C. Lyer - University Hospital Erlangen (Germany)
- Pages
- 430 - 435
- DOI
- 10.5162/sensor2015/C5.3
- ISBN
- 978-3-9813484-8-4
- Price
- free
Abstract
The aim of magnetic drug targeting (MDT) in cancer therapy is to locally increase chemotherapeutic agent density in the area of cancerous tissue. For this purpose, chemotherapeutic drugs are bound to superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, stabilized by a biocompatible layer. This compound then can be applied intra-arterially in the vicinity of a tumor. With the aid of an external, static magnetic field or rather a magnetic field gradient an accumulation of the nanoparticles and thus the drug in the region of interest is achieved [1]. Due to the lack of specificity of chemotherapeutic drugs for tumor cells, in conventional cancer treatment, a high dosage has to be applied to reach a sufficient concentration in the tumor area. This usually results in serious side effects in patients. The advantage of MDT is to obtain a higher dose of drug in the tumor region, while the overall dose and thereby side effects are reduced [2]. As accumulation of nanoparticles in the appropriate region is of vital importance for MDT, one should be able to visualize the particle concentration in the tissue. However, nanoparticles are not visible directly because of their weak backscattering using ultrasound imaging techniques. In this paper, we present a possibility to visualize these nanoparticles. It is based on exciting a periodic motion of the nanoparticles using an external, time harmonic magnetic field. The particles force the surrounding tissue to move also, and this can be visualized by ultrasound imaging techniques. Three different evaluation algorithms are investigated in this contribution.