Philips has disclosed the first 3D imaging results obtained with a new imaging technology it calls Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI). The technology uses the magnetic properties of iron-oxide nanoparticles, which are injected into the bloodstream.
If Philips succeeds in human trials, MPI will be used to produce real-time images that capture cardiovascular activity by measuring the nonoparticle concentrations in the bloodstream," says Henk van Houten, senior vice president of Philips Research and head of the Healthcare research program.
In a finding published in issue 54 of Physics In Medicine and Biology, Philips says that the results of the pre-clinical trial "represent a major step forward in taking Magnetic Particle Imaging from a theoretical concept to an imaging tool to help improve diagnosis and therapy for many of the world's major diseases, such as heart disease, stroke and cancer." Currently, the company is focusing on finding the causes and symptoms of atherosclerosis
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Breakthrough for Finding Plaque
Philips calls MPI "a novel, non-invasive cardiac imaging technology" that has the potential to "unravel and characterize the disease processes underlying atherosclerosis, in particular those associated with plaque formation, a major risk factor for stroke and heart attacks," says Professor Valentin Fuster, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Mount Sinai Heart Center, New York.
"Through its combined speed, resolution and sensitivity, Magnetic Particle Imaging technology has great potential for this application, and the latest in-vivo imaging results represent a major breakthrough," Dr. Fuster says.
MPI uses the magnetic properties of injected iron-oxide nanoparticles to measure the nanoparticle concentration in the blood. Because the human body contains no naturally occurring magnetic materials visible to MPI, there is no background signal, researchers say.
"After injection, the nanoparticles therefore appear as bright signals in the images, from which nanoparticle concentrations can be calculated. By combining high spatial resolution with short image acquisition times (as short as 1/50th of a second), Magnetic Particle Imaging can capture dynamic concentration changes as the nanoparticles are swept along by the blood stream. This could ultimately allow MPI scanners to perform a wide range of functional cardiovascular measurements in a single scan. These could include measurements of coronary blood supply, myocardial perfusion, and the heart's ejection fraction, as well as wall motion and flow speeds," researchers note.
Scaling Up For Human Use
The company still faces hurdles in scaling up the imaging system for human use. One of these is perfecting the magnetic field generation. Another problem Philips is working on is finding a way to measure and process the "extremely weak signal emitted by the nanoparticles.
"Signal measurement and processing are areas where Philips has a great deal of proven expertise and experience that researchers are currently applying to the task," the company says.
The scientific article, "Three-dimensional real-time in vivo magnetic
particle imaging," can be accessed by clicking http://stacks.iop.org/0031-9155/54/L1.
