Targeted ultrasonic contrast enhancement

结直肠癌，也被称为肠癌，是英国第四大常见癌症。目前可用的各种治疗方法，包括化疗和切除受影响区域的手术，都有并发症的风险，并由此对患者的健康和生活方式产生影响。目前直肠癌的分期和原发部位主要采用结肠镜、MRI和CT。这些在确定预后因素时可能受到限制，如淋巴结受累和肠壁内壁外浸润。一种能够检测这些特征的成像方式的发展不仅可以实现早期发现，还可以实现个性化治疗和手术需求。这可以随后改善患者的生活质量。对比增强超声已被证实可以在乳腺癌皮内注射后发现前哨淋巴结(1)。在这个项目中，我们的目标是开发针对特定生物标志物的内部最佳尺寸超声造影剂，以显示由于肠壁内侵犯引起的淋巴结转移。这些将在后期在直肠癌模型中进行体外和体内测试。参考:1。张建军，张建军，张建军，等。基于超声造影和微泡成像的前哨淋巴结识别。中华放射学杂志，2012,33(6):687-694。

Colorectal cancer, also termed as bowel cancer, is the fourth commonest known cancer in the UK. The various treatments available currently including chemotherapy and surgery to remove the affected areas, poses a risk of complications and consequent impacts on health and lifestyle of the patients. Currently colonoscopy, MRI and CT are used for the staging of rectal cancer and its primary position. These can be limited in defining prognostic factors such as lymph node involvement and intra and extra mural invasion in the rectal wall. Development of an imaging modality that could detect these features would enable not only early detection but will also allow personalized treatment and the need of the surgery. This can subsequently improve patient's quality of life.Contrast-enhanced ultrasound has been proven to identify sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer after intradermal injection (1). In this project, we aim to develop in-house optimal size ultrasound contrast agents targeted to specific biomarkers to visualize the lymph node metastases due to intramural invasion of rectal wall. These will be tested in vitro and in vivo in rectal cancer models at a later stage. Reference: 1. Sever AR, Mills P, Jones SE Mali W, Jones PA Sentinel node identification using microbubbles and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography. Clinical Radiology 2012 67: 687-694.