According to a study of Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech, a single substance with dual functionality to induce both a diagnostic as well as a therapeutic agent may be helpful in brain tumors to enhance imaging, diagnosis, and treatment procedure.
The most aggressive and common brain tumor diagnosed in humans is the Glioblastomas with a high possibility to reoccur. Radiologists and clinicians find it difficult to observe the tumor cells with existing imaging techniques because these cells often exceed the definite tumor margins. In order to delay or avoid relapsing of Glioblastomas, scientists have been working on advanced methods to destroy these cells.
A research team headed by Panos Fatouros, Chairman of the Division of Radiation Physics and Biology at VCU School of Medicine, has discovered that a nanoparticle comprising a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) diagnostic substance can be used to image effectively inside the tumor and can enable radiation therapy in a mammal model.
The nanoparticle was filled with a sensitive MRI agent known as gadolinium for imaging and then combined with radioactive lutetium 177 to offer brachytherapy. The resulting agent is called as a theranostic agent representing an individual compound with the ability to deliver effective imaging and treatment simultaneously. According to Fatouros, this theranostic agent can efficiently offer significant information on tumor response to the treatment through longitudinal imaging avoiding any additional contrast administration. The lutetium 177 was fastened to the outer part of the nanoparticle’s carbon cage. The nanoparticle that served as a platform for this study was developed by a team headed by Harry Dorn, Virginia Tech’s chemistry professor, and it was called as a functionalized metallofullerene (fMF) or a buckyball.
Source: http://www.vcu.edu/