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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 7. Distal bone lesions can be detected with SWIR imaging earlier than by contrast-enhanced MRI in a biomimetic metastasis model.

Figure 7

Representative images from non-tumor control animals (a) and Tumor-bearing animals (b) shows enhanced SWIR signal 6 weeks’ post inoculation with no significant changes in CE-MRI. At 8 weeks’ post inoculation both SWIR and CE-MRI shows enhanced signal from the bone space. Quantitative comparison of SWIR emission intensity (c) in bone lesions shows significant increase starting week 6 post inoculation compared to non-tumor control animals. Quantitative analysis of increase in pixel intensity pre- and post-contrast injection in MR imaging does not show significant enhancement until week 8 (d). Representative image of lung metastases prior to (e) and post (f) contrast injection at week 8, used as positive control, to show enhanced uptake of MRI contrast by tumor lesions. Data is expressed as mean± S.D; n=5 for tumor-bearing group and n=3 for healthy control group. *two-tailed P<0.05, determined by Welch’s t-test; n=5 **two tailed P<0.05 determined by Welch’s t-test; n=6. Data in c and d is represented as a fold increase compared to healthy control. SWIR intensities were normalized to those of the healthy control groups for the region of interest at each time point.