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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Jun 12.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Biomed Eng. 2017 Dec 12;1:993–1003. doi: 10.1038/s41551-017-0167-9

Figure 3. Distal bone lesions can be detected with SWIR imaging earlier than by MRI and CT in a biomimetic metastasis model.

Figure 3

(a) Schematic diagram illustrating intravenous inoculation of MDA-MB-231 derived SCP28 cells followed by tail vein administration of ReANCs and in vivo SWIR imaging. Representative images from (b) non-tumor-bearing control animals and (c) tumor-bearing animals at weeks 3 and 5 post-inoculation. (d) Quantification of SWIR intensity shows at least a 2-fold increase in signal over healthy controls from week 5 onwards. Data is expressed as mean±S.D; n=4 for tumor-bearing group and n=3 for healthy control group. *two-tailed P<0.06, determined by Welch’s t-test. Data in (d) is represented as a fold increase compared to healthy control. (e) MRI and (f) BLI show no visible bone abnormalities at the study end point. SWIR intensities were normalized to those of the healthy control groups for the region of interest at each time point.