To enhance clinical care for patients, methods for noninvasive imaging of specific
disease-related molecular changes are being developed to expand and improve diagnostic
capabilities. These new techniques are used in research programs to characterize pathophysiology
and as a surrogate end point for therapeutic efficacy. Molecular imaging with contrast-enhanced
ultrasound relies on the detection of microbubbles or other acoustically active particulate
agents that are targeted to and retained at sites of disease. This review describes
the progress that has been made in the development and testing of methods for contrast
ultrasound molecular imaging with a specific focus on cardiovascular disease. Specific
topics addressed include probe development, detection methods, and specific biologic
processes that are important in clinical cardiovascular medicine and that have been
targeted with microbubble contrast agents.
Abbreviations:
ACS (acute coronary syndrome), ECG (electrocardiography), PS (phosphatidylserine), VCAM (vascular cellular adhesion molecule)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 06, 2012
Accepted:
December 1,
2011
Received in revised form:
December 1,
2011
Received:
September 22,
2011
Footnotes
Conflicts of Interest: none.
Dr Lindner is supported by Grants R01-HL078610, R01-DK063508, and RC01-100659 from the National Institutes of Health and the recipient of an investigator-initiated grant from GE Medical Imaging.
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
