title: Recent advances in nanoparticle-based nuclear imaging of cancers.
abstract: Nuclear imaging techniques that include positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon computed tomography have found great success in the clinic because of their inherent high sensitivity. Radionuclide imaging is the most popular form of imaging to be used for molecular imaging in oncology. While many types of molecules have been used for radionuclide-based molecular imaging, there has been a great interest in developing newer nanomaterials for use in clinic, especially for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Nanomaterials have unique physical properties which allow them to be used as imaging probes to locate and identify cancerous lesions. Over the past decade, a great number of nanoparticles have been developed for radionuclide imaging of cancer. This chapter reviews the different kinds of nanomaterials, both organic and inorganic, which are currently being researched for as potential agents for nuclear imaging of variety of cancers. Several radiolabeled multifunctional nanocarriers have been extremely successful for the detection of cancer in preclinical models. So far, significant progress has been achieved in nanoparticle structure design, in vitro/in vivo trafficking, and in vivo fate mapping by using PET. There is a great need for the development of newer nanoparticles, which improve active targeting and quantify new biomarkers for early disease detection and possible prevention of cancer.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Nanomedicine, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Avinash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Srivatsan
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Nanomedicine, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Electronic address: shawn.chen@nih.gov.
authors.forename: Xiaoyuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D053758:Nanoparticles; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*
keywords: Active targeting; Cancer; Nanoparticles; Positron emission tomography; Single-photon emission computed tomography