Nano-sized Ultrasound Contrast Agents for Cancer Therapy and Theranostics

Title:Nano-sized Ultrasound Contrast Agents for Cancer Therapy and Theranostics

Volume: 23 Issue: 35

Author(s): Hao Li, Shenglong Gan, Shi-Ting Feng, Guofu Zhou, Zhi Dong, Rongqin Zheng*Zi-Ping Li*

Affiliation:

• Department of Ultrasonography, The Third Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510630,China

• Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510080,China

Keywords: Ultrasound contrast agents, cancer therapy, cancer theranostics, nano-sized, polymer.

Abstract: Ultrasound contrast agents (UCA) represented by gas-filled microbubble, can provide simultaneous and co-localized enhancement on image contrast to help disease diagnosis by highlighting tissue borders. Nowadays, Some UCAs (e.g. Levovist®, Optison®, Definity®, and Sonovue®) are commercially available, and have been clinically utilized for enhanced ultrasonography in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia and so on. However, their large diameters (1~10 µm) mainly hinder more precise and deeper applications in the imaging of capillaryabundant organs or tissues (e.g. tumor), and undersized nanoscale UCAs also lack enough backscattering echo intensity to distinguish abnormal distribution of vessels. So novel shapes, structures and materials of nano-sized UCAs are constantly emerging for cancer ultrasonic imaging. Particularly, the cavitation effect of diagnostic ultrasound can accelerate effusion of loaded contents from UCAs, following cellular uptake. This will inevitably contribute to develop other potential applications of nano-sized UCAs towards cancer therapy and theranostics.

Cite this article as:

Li Hao , Gan Shenglong, Feng Shi-Ting, Zhou Guofu , Dong Zhi , Zheng Rongqin *, Li Zi-Ping*, Nano-sized Ultrasound Contrast Agents for Cancer Therapy and Theranostics, Current Pharmaceutical Design 2017; 23 (35) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1381612823666170710120631