Medical researchers have discovered a promising new technique for detecting cancer at an earlier stage. By using microbubbles to enhance immune cells, ultrasound technology can now image the cells and reveal their traffic patterns. These patterns can then be analyzed to diagnose cancer in its early stages, potentially leading to more successful treatment outcomes.

Macrophages are a vital component of the immune system, as they protect the body by engulfing and digesting foreign particles like viruses, bacteria, and dead cells.

These immune cells also tend to gather in solid tumors, which makes tracking them an effective way to detect cancer and the early stages of metastasis.

Presenting at the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Ashley Alva from the Georgia Institute of Technology will unveil a novel method of creating high-resolution tracking images.

The technique involves attaching microbubbles to macrophages, which improves sensitivity and accuracy, making it a promising tool for disease diagnosis.

This innovative approach holds significant potential for identifying cancerous cells and enabling earlier and more effective treatment.

Various methods, including optical imaging, MRI, and PET scans, have been employed for macrophage imaging, but each has its drawbacks. Optical imaging is restricted to immune cells located near the skin’s surface due to its limited penetration depth. MRI can yield detailed macrophage and tumor environment data, but it faces difficulties in identifying small cell quantities. PET scans offer high sensitivity, but they have low resolution and necessitate ionizing radiation.

“Ultrasound could potentially overcome these limitations, as it is nonionizing, noninvasive, and has great depth of penetration,” adds Alva.

Alva and her team have developed a technique to enhance the visualization of macrophages in vivo using microbubbles. By attaching microbubbles to the macrophages, the team enabled the cells to emit an echo when exposed to ultrasound, resulting in high-resolution and sensitive imaging of the macrophages.

“In the future, we envision harvesting macrophages from patients, labeling them with microbubbles, and reinserting them to improve diagnosis using ultrasound tracking methods and algorithms we are currently developing,” said Alva. “If needed, the harvested macrophages could also be engineered to become more sensitive to certain disease characteristics before being reinjected into patients.”

Having the ability to visualize macrophages in vivo could prove to be an invaluable tool for comprehending immune responses and assessing the effectiveness of therapies.

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