Medical Imaging for Cancer Detection

The January 16, 2007 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study by researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York that uses molecular MRI to gain insight into the correlation between inflammation and heart disease. Researchers developed a synthetic material, gadolinium–diethyltriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) that is able to track down and attach to white blood cells imbedded in arterial walls. The DPTA allowed the MRI visualization of the white blood cells, providing the ability to actually count the number of cells and assess their stability. Researchers found a positive correlation between the number of white cells imbedded in the arterial walls and the likelihood of subsequent heart attack. The initial research was conducted on mice. Further research will be conducted on larger animals and if successful, the research will move to human clinical trials.

The search for better, more efficient and more specific medical imaging “tagging” media is the hottest new area of research in molecular magnetic resonance medical imaging. Recently, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have reported on research involving a new medical imaging technique for MRI that can detect molecules 10,000 times lower concentrations than conventional MRI techniques. The method, called HYPER-CEST, for hyperpolarized xenon chemical exchange saturation transfer, hyperpolarizes atoms with laser light to enhance their MRI signal, and then places the atoms into a nano-scale cage biosensor which is made specifically for a particular protein target. This medical imaging method is expected to be particularly useful in detecting cancer cells at the very earliest stages of cancer presence.