scholarly journals From Micro- to Nano-Multifunctional Theranostic Platform: Effective Ultrasound Imaging Is Not Just a Matter of Scale

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 153601211877821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Zullino ◽  
Monica Argenziano ◽  
Ilaria Stura ◽  
Caterina Guiot ◽  
Roberta Cavalli

Ultrasound Contrast Agents (UCAs) consisting of gas-filled-coated Microbubbles (MBs) with diameters between 1 and 10 µm have been used for a number of decades in diagnostic imaging. In recent years, submicron contrast agents have proven to be a viable alternative to MBs for ultrasound (US)-based applications for their capability to extravasate and accumulate in the tumor tissue via the enhanced permeability and retention effect. After a short overview of the more recent approaches to ultrasound-mediated imaging and therapeutics at the nanoscale, phase-change contrast agents (PCCAs), which can be phase-transitioned into highly echogenic MBs by means of US, are here presented. The phenomenon of acoustic droplet vaporization (ADV) to produce bubbles is widely investigated for both imaging and therapeutic applications to develop promising theranostic platforms.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaskar Gnyawali ◽  
Byeong-Ui Moon ◽  
Jennifer Kieda ◽  
Raffi Karshafian ◽  
Michael C. Kolios ◽  
...  

We present a microfluidic technique that shrinks lipidstabilized microbubbles from O(100) to O(1) µm in diameter–the size that is desirable in applications as ultrasound contrast agents. We achieve microbubble shrinkage by utilizing vacuum channels that are adjacent to the microfluidic flow channels to extract air from the microbubbles. We tune a single parameter, the vacuum pressure, to accurately control the final microbubble size. Finally, we demonstrate that the resulting O(1) µm diameter microbubbles have similar stability to microfluidics generated microbubbles that are not exposed to vacuum shrinkage. We anticipate that, with additional scale-up, this simple approach to shrink microbubbles generated microfluidically will be desirable in ultrasound imaging and therapeutics applications.


Author(s):  
Pankaj Yadav ◽  
Ashok Yadav ◽  
Prathibha Yadav ◽  
Shaily Chaudhary

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 3584
Author(s):  
Huang-Chen Lin ◽  
Shyh-Hau Wang

The assessment of microvascular perfusion is essential for the diagnosis of a specific muscle disease. In comparison with the current available medical modalities, the contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging is the simplest and fastest means for probing the tissue perfusion. Specifically, the perfusion parameters estimated from the ultrasound time-intensity curve (TIC) and statistics-based time–Nakagami parameter curve (TNC) approaches were found able to quantify the perfusion. However, due to insufficient tolerance on tissue clutters and subresolvable effects, these approaches remain short of reproducibility and robustness. Consequently, the window-modulated compounding (WMC) Nakagami parameter ratio imaging was proposed to alleviate these effects, by taking the ratio of WMC Nakagami parameters corresponding to the incidence of two different acoustic pressures from an employed transducer. The time–Nakagami parameter ratio curve (TNRC) approach was also developed to estimate perfusion parameters. Measurements for the assessment of muscle perfusion were performed from the flow phantom and animal subjects administrated with a bolus of ultrasound contrast agents. The TNRC approach demonstrated better sensitivity and tolerance of tissue clutters than those of TIC and TNC. The fusion image with the WMC Nakagami parameter ratio and B-mode images indicated that both the tissue structures and perfusion properties of ultrasound contrast agents may be better discerned.


Langmuir ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (31) ◽  
pp. 10116-10127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosra Toumia ◽  
Barbara Cerroni ◽  
Fabio Domenici ◽  
Heiko Lange ◽  
Livia Bianchi ◽  
...  

Biomaterials ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 279-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hengli Yang ◽  
Wenbin Cai ◽  
Lei Xu ◽  
Xiuhua Lv ◽  
Youbei Qiao ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaskar Gnyawali ◽  
Byeong-Ui Moon ◽  
Jennifer Kieda ◽  
Raffi Karshafian ◽  
Michael C. Kolios ◽  
...  

We present a microfluidic technique that shrinks lipidstabilized microbubbles from O(100) to O(1) µm in diameter–the size that is desirable in applications as ultrasound contrast agents. We achieve microbubble shrinkage by utilizing vacuum channels that are adjacent to the microfluidic flow channels to extract air from the microbubbles. We tune a single parameter, the vacuum pressure, to accurately control the final microbubble size. Finally, we demonstrate that the resulting O(1) µm diameter microbubbles have similar stability to microfluidics generated microbubbles that are not exposed to vacuum shrinkage. We anticipate that, with additional scale-up, this simple approach to shrink microbubbles generated microfluidically will be desirable in ultrasound imaging and therapeutics applications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 3411-3422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenna Osborn ◽  
Jessica E. Pullan ◽  
James Froberg ◽  
Jacob Shreffler ◽  
Kara N. Gange ◽  
...  

Exosomes, naturally secreted extracellular bilayer vesicles (diameter 40–130 nm), have been rendered echogenic (responsive to ultrasound) allowing their potential use as a dual agent for drug delivery and ultrasound imaging.


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