DEVELOPMENT OF DIFFUSE OPTICS FOR BREAST CANCER IMAGING AND MONITORING

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 乳腺癌是全世界女性中最常见的癌症之一。为了降低 乳腺癌死亡率，筛查、诊断、 对癌症的治疗监测势在必行。漫反射光学成像和光谱学 方法承诺为这些应用程序提供新的工具。光学方法利用非电离 辐射(例如，红光到红外光)，是非侵入性或微侵入性的，并且便宜， 技术上简单而快速。这些方法提供了几个唯一的参数 可能提高乳腺肿瘤敏感性和特异性的组织中的功能过程。 组织光学吸收系数提供了血液动力学、总血红蛋白 浓度、血氧饱和度、水浓度和脂肪含量。这些组织 在快速生长的肿瘤中，属性通常有很大不同；例如，高 低血氧饱和度的血红蛋白浓度提示生长迅速 肿瘤是由于其高代谢需求和(有时)低血流灌注所致。在一种不同的 静脉，细胞器数量的增加，特别是线粒体或细胞核，有时 伴随着快速生长的肿瘤的较高代谢活动，并导致 肿瘤的光学散射系数增加。最后，光吸收、荧光、 以及散布占据血管和血管外空间的外源性造影剂也 提供有用的敏感化形式。沿着这些思路，漫反射光学成像的进展 乳房对于利用分子成像领域的进展至关重要，分子成像是一个新兴领域 医学发展前景看好的新一代造影剂。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women worldwide. In order to lower the death rate due to breast cancer, significant improvements in the areas of screening, diagnosis, and therapy monitoring of cancer are imperative. Diffuse optical imaging and spectroscopy methods promise new tools for these applications. The optical methods utilize non-ionizing radiation (e.g. red to infrared light), are non-invasive or minimally-invasive, and are inexpensive, technologically simple and fast. These methods provide several unique parameters based on functional processes in tissues with potential to enhance breast tumor sensitivity and specificity. Tissue optical absorption coefficients provide access to blood dynamics, total hemoglobin concentration, blood oxygen saturation, water concentration and lipid content. These tissue properties are often substantially different in rapidly growing tumors; for example, high concentrations of hemoglobin with low oxygen saturation are suggestive of rapidly growing tumors due to their high metabolic demand and (sometimes) poor perfusion. In a different vein, an increase in organelle population, particularly mitochondria or nuclei, sometimes accompanies the higher metabolic activity of the rapidly growing tumor, and leads to an increase of optical scattering coefficients for the tumor. Finally, optical absorption, fluorescence, and scattering of exogenous contrast agents that occupy vascular and extravascular space also provide useful forms of sensitization. Along these lines, advances in diffuse optical imaging of breast are critical for exploitation of advances in the field of Molecular Imaging, an emerging area of medicine promising development of new generation contrast agents.