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Medical ultrasound includes diagnostic techniques using ultrasound, as well as therapeutic applications of ultrasound. In diagnosis, it is used to create an image of internal body structures such as tendons, muscles, joints, blood vessels, and internal organs, to measure some characteristics or to generate an informative audible sound. The usage of ultrasound to produce visual images for medicine is called medical ultrasonography or simply sonography, or echography. The practice of examining pregnant women using ultrasound is called obstetric ultrasonography, and was an early development of clinical ultrasonography. The machine used is called an ultrasound machine, a sonograph or an echograph. The visual image formed using this technique is called an ultrasonogram, a sonogram or an echogram.
Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to reveal internal structures hidden by the skin and bones, as well as to diagnose and treat disease. Medical imaging also establishes a database of normal anatomy and physiology to make it possible to identify abnormalities. Although imaging of removed organs and tissues can be performed for medical reasons, such procedures are usually considered part of pathology instead of medical imaging.
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is the application of ultrasound contrast medium to traditional medical sonography. Ultrasound contrast agents rely on the different ways in which sound waves are reflected from interfaces between substances. This may be the surface of a small air bubble or a more complex structure. Commercially available contrast media are gas-filled microbubbles that are administered intravenously to the systemic circulation. Microbubbles have a high degree of echogenicity. There is a great difference in echogenicity between the gas in the microbubbles and the soft tissue surroundings of the body. Thus, ultrasonic imaging using microbubble contrast agents enhances the ultrasound backscatter, (reflection) of the ultrasound waves, to produce a sonogram with increased contrast due to the high echogenicity difference. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound can be used to image blood perfusion in organs, measure blood flow rate in the heart and other organs, and for other applications.
Molecular imaging is a field of medical imaging that focuses on imaging molecules of medical interest within living patients. This is in contrast to conventional methods for obtaining molecular information from preserved tissue samples, such as histology. Molecules of interest may be either ones produced naturally by the body, or synthetic molecules produced in a laboratory and injected into a patient by a doctor. The most common example of molecular imaging used clinically today is to inject a contrast agent into a patient's bloodstream and to use an imaging modality to track its movement in the body. Molecular imaging originated from the field of radiology from a need to better understand fundamental molecular processes inside organisms in a noninvasive manner.
In medicine, a biomarker is a measurable indicator of the severity or presence of some disease state. More generally a biomarker is anything that can be used as an indicator of a particular disease state or some other physiological state of an organism. According to the WHO, the indicator may be chemical, physical, or biological in nature - and the measurement may be functional, physiological, biochemical, cellular, or molecular.
Targeted drug delivery, sometimes called smart drug delivery, is a method of delivering medication to a patient in a manner that increases the concentration of the medication in some parts of the body relative to others. This means of delivery is largely founded on nanomedicine, which plans to employ nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery in order to combat the downfalls of conventional drug delivery. These nanoparticles would be loaded with drugs and targeted to specific parts of the body where there is solely diseased tissue, thereby avoiding interaction with healthy tissue. The goal of a targeted drug delivery system is to prolong, localize, target and have a protected drug interaction with the diseased tissue. The conventional drug delivery system is the absorption of the drug across a biological membrane, whereas the targeted release system releases the drug in a dosage form. The advantages to the targeted release system is the reduction in the frequency of the dosages taken by the patient, having a more uniform effect of the drug, reduction of drug side-effects, and reduced fluctuation in circulating drug levels. The disadvantage of the system is high cost, which makes productivity more difficult, and the reduced ability to adjust the dosages.
Glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCPII), also known as N-acetyl-L-aspartyl-L-glutamate peptidase I, NAAG peptidase, or prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the FOLH1 gene. Human GCPII contains 750 amino acids and weighs approximately 84 kDa.
- Targeted drug delivery is one of many ways researchers seek to improve drug delivery systems' overall efficacy, safety, and delivery. Within this medical field is a special reversal form of drug delivery called chemotactic drug targeting. By using chemical agents to help guide a drug carrier to a specific location within the body, this innovative approach seeks to improve precision and control during the drug delivery process, decrease the risk of toxicity, and potentially lower the required medical dosage needed. The general components of the conjugates are designed as follows: (i) carrier – regularly possessing promoter effect also on internalization into the cell; (ii) chemotactically active ligands acting on the target cells; (iii) drug to be delivered in a selective way and (iv) spacer sequence which joins drug molecule to the carrier and due to it enzyme labile moiety makes possible the intracellular compartment specific release of the drug. Careful selection of chemotactic component of the ligand not only the chemoattractant character could be expended, however, chemorepellent ligands are also valuable as they are useful to keep away cell populations degrading the conjugate containing the drug. In a larger sense, chemotactic drug-targeting has the potential to improve cancer, inflammation, and arthritis treatment by taking advantage of the difference in environment between the target site and its surroundings. Therefore, this Wikipedia article aims to provide a brief overview of chemotactic drug targeting, the principles behind the approach, possible limitations and advantages, and its application to cancer and inflammation.
Smart polymers, stimuli-responsive polymers or functional polymers are high-performance polymers that change according to the environment they are in. Such materials can be sensitive to a number of factors, such as temperature, humidity, pH, chemical compounds, the wavelength or intensity of light or an electrical or magnetic field and can respond in various ways, like altering color or transparency, becoming conductive or permeable to water or changing shape. Usually, slight changes in the environment are sufficient to induce large changes in the polymer's properties.
Folate targeting is a method utilized in biotechnology for drug delivery purposes. This Trojan Horse process, which was created by Drs. Christopher P. Leamon and Philip S. Low, involves the attachment of the vitamin, folate, to a molecule/drug to form a "folate conjugate". Based on the natural high affinity of folate for the folate receptor protein (FR), which is commonly expressed on the surface of many human cancers, folate-drug conjugates also bind tightly to the FR and trigger cellular uptake via endocytosis. Molecules as diverse as small radiodiagnostic imaging agents to large DNA plasmid formulations have successfully been delivered inside FR-positive cells and tissues.
Microbubbles (MBs) are bubbles smaller than one hundredth of a millimetre in diameter, but larger than one micrometre. They have widespread application in industry, medicine, life science, and food technology. The composition of the bubble shell and filling material determine important design features such as buoyancy, crush strength, thermal conductivity, and acoustic properties.
Preclinical imaging is the visualization of living animals for research purposes, such as drug development. Imaging modalities have long been crucial to the researcher in observing changes, either at the organ, tissue, cell, or molecular level, in animals responding to physiological or environmental changes. Imaging modalities that are non-invasive and in vivo have become especially important to study animal models longitudinally. Broadly speaking, these imaging systems can be categorized into primarily morphological/anatomical and primarily molecular imaging techniques. Techniques such as high-frequency micro-ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are usually used for anatomical imaging, while optical imaging, positron emission tomography (PET), and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) are usually used for molecular visualizations.
Antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs are a class of biopharmaceutical drugs designed as a targeted therapy for treating cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, ADCs are intended to target and kill tumor cells while sparing healthy cells. As of 2019, some 56 pharmaceutical companies were developing ADCs.
Vintafolide is an investigational targeted cancer therapeutic currently under development by Endocyte and Merck & Co. It is a small molecule drug conjugate consisting of a small molecule targeting the folate receptor, which is overexpressed on certain cancers, such as ovarian cancer, and a potent chemotherapy drug, vinblastine.
Endocyte is a biopharmaceutical company established in 1996 and headquartered in West Lafayette, Indiana, a resident of the Purdue Research Park. In 2011 the company completed successfully an initial public offering (IPO). As of 2013, the company had 93 employees. The original president and CEO, Ron Ellis, was succeeded by Mike Sherman, who held a CFO position at the company before this change in June 2016. In 2018 the company was acquired by Novartis.
Nanoparticles for drug delivery to the brain is a method for transporting drug molecules across the blood–brain barrier (BBB) using nanoparticles. These drugs cross the BBB and deliver pharmaceuticals to the brain for therapeutic treatment of neurological disorders. These disorders include Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, depression, and brain tumors. Part of the difficulty in finding cures for these central nervous system (CNS) disorders is that there is yet no truly efficient delivery method for drugs to cross the BBB. Antibiotics, antineoplastic agents, and a variety of CNS-active drugs, especially neuropeptides, are a few examples of molecules that cannot pass the BBB alone. With the aid of nanoparticle delivery systems, however, studies have shown that some drugs can now cross the BBB, and even exhibit lower toxicity and decrease adverse effects throughout the body. Toxicity is an important concept for pharmacology because high toxicity levels in the body could be detrimental to the patient by affecting other organs and disrupting their function. Further, the BBB is not the only physiological barrier for drug delivery to the brain. Other biological factors influence how drugs are transported throughout the body and how they target specific locations for action. Some of these pathophysiological factors include blood flow alterations, edema and increased intracranial pressure, metabolic perturbations, and altered gene expression and protein synthesis. Though there exist many obstacles that make developing a robust delivery system difficult, nanoparticles provide a promising mechanism for drug transport to the CNS.
Technetium (99mTc) etarfolatide is an investigational non-invasive, folate receptor-targeting companion imaging agent that is being developed by Endocyte. Etarfolatide consists of a small molecule targeting the folate receptor and an imaging agent, which is based on technetium-99m. This companion imaging agent identifies cells expressing the folate receptor, including cancer and inflammatory cells.
DMTHF-Tc is a radiopharmaceutical which combines DMTHF, a modified folate, with technetium-99m (99mTc), a gamma emitting radionuclide, in a chelate conjugate. It shows selectivity for certain cancer cells which overexpress FR-α, and can therefore be used for diagnostic imaging in nuclear medicine. DMTHF-Tc was developed by the Philip Low lab at Purdue University.
Optimer ligands are short synthetic oligonucleotide molecules composed of DNA or RNA that bind to a specific target molecule. They are engineered to bind their target molecules with affinity typically in the low nanomolar range. Optimers can be used as antibody mimetics in a range of applications, and have been optimized to increase their stability, reduce their molecular weight, and offer increased scalability and consistency in manufacture compared to standard aptamer molecules.
Focused ultrasound for intracrainial drug delivery is a non-invasive technique that uses high-frequency sound waves to disrupt tight junctions in the blood–brain barrier (BBB), allowing for increased passage of therapeutics into the brain. The BBB normally blocks nearly 98% of drugs from accessing the central nervous system, so FUS has the potential to address a major challenge in intracranial drug delivery by providing targeted and reversible BBB disruption. Using FUS to enhance drug delivery to the brain could significantly improve patient outcomes for a variety of diseases including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and brain cancer.
References
- ↑ "Ultrasound First — AIUM Initiative Points Out the Diagnostic Benefits and Cost Savings of Using Ultrasound as the Primary Imaging Modality in Many Cases".
- ↑ "Ultrasound First — AIUM Initiative Points Out the Diagnostic Benefits and Cost Savings of Using Ultrasound as the Primary Imaging Modality in Many Cases".
- ↑ Datan E, Minn I, Peng X, He QL, Ahn H, Yu B, Pomper MG, Liu JO (2020). "A Glucose-Triptolide Conjugate Selectively Targets Cancer Cells under Hypoxia". iScience. 23 (9): 101536. Bibcode:2020iSci...23j1536D. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101536 . PMC 7509213 . PMID 33083765.
- ↑ http://www.ddn-news.com/index.php?pg=77&articleid=6278 [ dead link ]
- ↑ "Ultrasound First — AIUM Initiative Points Out the Diagnostic Benefits and Cost Savings of Using Ultrasound as the Primary Imaging Modality in Many Cases".