A team of researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is developing a new pill that could make tumors light up when exposed to infrared light. Could this someday be used in breast cancer screening?
Lead author Greg M. Thurber, assistant professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, noted in a prepared statement that the use of such a pill could result in significant cost savings.
“We overspend $4 billion per year on the diagnosis and treatment of cancers that women would never die from,” Thurber said. “If we go to molecular imaging, we can see which tumors need to be treated.”
Thurber et al. published their latest findings, detailing the pill’s effectiveness with mice, in a new study for Molecular Pharmaceutics.
“The high negative charge density on the agent enabled sufficient oral absorption, reduced nonspecific internalization, facilitated targeting by extending the clearance half-life, and increased retention through cellular trapping to yield efficient targeting contrast in a small animal model of breast cancer for detection at clinically relevant depths,” Thurber and colleagues wrote. “To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a disease screening approach using oral administration of a molecular imaging agent, and these mechanisms should be applicable to additional agents and disease targets for developing a series of molecular imaging agents for noninvasive screening.”
The study details the various challenges researchers must still address to make this potential pill a reality. The authors also added that would likely be a “long time period between administration and imaging,” but the method could still “have a major impact on patient compliance in screening large healthy populations.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.