Investigation of Metastatic Breast Tumor Heterogeneity and Progression Using Dual Optical/SPECT Imaging
Abstract
The goal of our project is to image tumor growth, metastatic development and vascular changes, both to characterize tumor dynamics during growth for application in diagnostic and prognostic imaging. and to aid in the development of new therapies by dissecting the effects of treatment. The technical goal for the first year has been to develop a device to image the whole animal by nuclear medicine and optical techniques. Ultimately, we believe that these techniques will be useful in the clinic to detect tumors at small sizes, for lymph node assessment and for the detection of occult metastases. Optical imaging techniques have been developed for laboratory studies but have recently been extended to humans. SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) is a well accepted clinical tool for which agents and methods exist for the characterization of disease in the clinical environment. The successful translation to the clinic depends upon further advances in crucial technical properties (imaging characteristics, sensitivity and specificity). We specifically propose to study how the dual modality images could be useful in tumor detection and treatment. We report first our initial results in tomographic imaging of light emission. We present images showing that it is possible to detect small lesions not only subcutaneously but also at depth in vivo, and characterize the advantages of this method for quantitative imaging. We have also demonstrated micro-SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) imaging at high resolution. We report here on our initial progress in SPECT, and on the advantages of tomography initially for small animals, showing submillimeter resolution in a mouse when imaging bone.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA444108
Entities
People
- Anca Constantinescu
- Edmond Richer
- Matthew Lewis
- Peter P. Antich
- Ralph Mason
Organizations
- University of Texas at Dallas