Contrast Agents and Contrast Imaging in Ultrasound

High Framerate Imaging of Ultrasound Contrast Agents

Phospholipid-coated ultrasound contrast agents may deflate or even collapse because of stress resulting from ultrasound-induced oscillations. In this work we investigate the behavior of isolated contrast agent microbubbles during prolonged ultrasound excitation. Isolated microbubbles placed in a thin capillary tube were excited with hundreds of ultrasound pulses at a low mechanical index, and t...

Molecular and Cellular Imaging with Ultrasound Contrast Agents

Introduction Today, ultrasound imaging generally plays a minor role in molecular imaging. Most of the clinical activities are focused on PET and SPECT, and most of preclinical research is expanded to the areas of optical imaging and MRI. However, with proper contrast agents designed for molecular imaging, ultrasound can play an essential role both in research and clinical applications. Historic...

Liposomes as ultrasound imaging contrast agents and as ultrasound-sensitive drug delivery agents.

Ultrasound imaging contrast agents that exhibit an affinity for specific tissue types, and especially, disease sites, would have considerable clinical value. Liposomal dispersions can be prepared such that they both reflect diagnostic ultrasound [1] and, when conjugated to an appropriate antibody, target themselves to thrombi in the vascular circulation [2]. The procedure for preparation of ult...

Molecular ultrasound imaging using microbubble contrast agents Paul

Contrast agents in dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging

Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) is a noninvasive method to assess angiogenesis, which is widely used in clinical applications including diagnosis, monitoring therapy response and prognosis estimation in cancer patients. Contrast agents play a crucial role in DCE-MRI and should be carefully selected in order to improve accuracy in DCE-MRI examination. Over the past...