Accomplishments

Diffuse Optics: Collaborative Research and Service

• DOS was shown to be highly sensitive to tumor functional changes in a breast cancer patient undergoing pre-surgical neoadjuvant chemotherapy over a ~9 week cycle (D. Jakubowski et al., 2004) and measurements obtained within 1 week of initiating therapy were shown to be predictive of final clincal outcome (i.e. responder vs. non-responder) after 9 weeks of therapy as determined by post-surgical histopathology. (A. Cerussi et al., 2007)
• The absorption, scattering, and physiologic properties of malignant breast tumors were characterized by DOS in a 58-patient study, and optical properties were correlated with tumor histologic grade (A. Cerussi et al., 2006)
• The efficacy of red blood cell transfusion in very low birthweight infants determined non-invasively by DOS correlates with conventional invasive hemoglobin assays. (A. Cerussi et al., 2005)
• Dynamic measurements of optical contrast agents obtained in a pre-clinical animal model and co-registered with MRI were used to quantify tumor structure, composition, vascular permeability, and extravascular space. (D. Cuccia et al., 2003)

Spatially Modulated Imaging quantitatively maps absorption and scattering in skin (top), and in tumor animal models (bottom).

• Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI co-registered with DOS in patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy showed complementary information content (D. Hsiang et al., 2005) and comparable sensitivity to therapy-induced tumor volumetric, vascular, and water changes. (N. Shah et al., 2005)
• Background spatial variations in normal breast tissue optical properties were characterized in a clinical population and a baseline was established for optical contrast necessary for disease detection. (N. Shah et al., 2004)
• DOS sensitivity to tumors in pre-menopausal women with dense breast tissue was highlighted. (B. Tromberg et al., 2005)
• The sensitivity of spatially-modulated imaging to cortical activity was demonstrated in a rat model of stroke (M. Matthews et al., 2007) and cortical spreading depression. (D. Cuccia, 2006)
• The rich spectral content of broadband DOS is essential for dynamically monitoring the nitrate-induced formation and methylene-blue mediated reduction of Methemoglobin with 100 nM sensitivity (J. Lee et al., 2006) and for accurately asessing the extent of hypovolemia (J. Lee and D. Saltzman et al., 2006) in a pre-clinical animal model.
• A new spectral analysis method has been developed that identifies specific tumor signatures based on differences in molecular disposition of water, hemoglobin and lipid compared to normal tissue (S. Kukreti et al., 2007) and allows differentiation between malignant and benign tumors. (S. Kukreti, 2007)
• The combination of Diffuse correlation and Diffuse optical spectroscopies in a single platform were used to measure dynamic fluctuations in tumor total metabolic rate during the first week of a patient undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy. (C. Zhou et al., in press)