Abstract
In this study, in vivo animal experiments with 12 nude mice bearing breast-cancer-patient-tissue-derived xenograft (PDX) tumors were performed aiming to verify the imaging capability of a novel miniaturized fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) endoscope, in combination with targeted nanoparticle–near-infrared (NIR) dye conjugates. Tumor-bearing mice were divided into two groups by systematic injection with urokinase plasminogen activator receptor-targeted (n = 7) and nontargeted (n = 5) imaging nanoprobes as a contrast agent, respectively. Each mouse was imaged at 6, 24, and 48 h following the injection of nanoprobes using the FMT endoscope. The results show that systemic delivery of targeted nanoprobes produced a 4-fold enhancement in fluorescence signals from tumors, compared with tumors that received nontargeted nanoprobes. This study indicates that our miniaturized FMT endoscope, coupled with the targeted nanoparticle–NIR dye conjugates as a contrast agent, has high sensitivity and specificity, and thus great potential to be used for image-guided detection and removal of a primary tumor and local metastatic tumors during surgery.
Highlights
Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer [1,2]
The results presented above demonstrate that NIR 830-ATF-iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) is a highly specific optical imaging probe with high sensitivity and specificity that can be used for targeted molecular imaging
It is important to point out the fact that NIR 830-ATF-IONP is a probes in the tumor edge, which facilitates detection of tumor margins by optical imaging [27]
Summary
Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer [1,2]. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for about 20% of breast cancer patients, is usually detected at a late stage with aggressive pathological features, has an increased likelihood of local and distant recurrence, and has a short overall survival time [3,4]. Over 30% of TNBC patients develop a local recurrence, a distant metastasis, or both within the first three years of initial treatment, and most cancer deaths occur within five years of diagnosis [5,6]. Pre-operation neoadjuvant chemotherapy is usually given to TNBC patients to reduce the incidence of local and distant tumor recurrence. In order to increase the overall survival of TNBC patients, there is an urgent need to develop novel imaging technologies that can assist in the specific and sensitive detection of tumor lesions for surgical removal and to further reduce the incidence of local and distant tumor recurrence
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