ORIGINAL ARTICLES  CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR ADVANCES IN THE STUDY OF INFLAMMATION 

Minerva Biotecnologica 2004 June;16(2):151-9

Copyright © 2004 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Molecular imaging of inflammation processes using small-animal scanners

Boschi A., Cazzola E., Duatti A., Uccelli L.

Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy

Scintigraphic imag­ing of inflam­ma­tion is a pow­er­ful ­tool for in ­vivo vis­u­al­iza­tion of bio­log­i­cal pro­cess­es under­ly­ing the inflam­ma­to­ry dis­ease. A num­ber of radio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals are cur­rent­ly avail­able for mon­i­tor­ing inflam­ma­tion. These ­agents accu­mu­late in the inflam­ma­to­ry ­lesion ­because of the local­ly ­changed phys­io­log­i­cal and bio­chem­i­cal con­di­tions. They are ­able, there­fore, to pro­vide infor­ma­tion on phys­io­chem­i­cal alter­a­tions ­involved in the inflam­ma­to­ry ­response at a molec­u­lar lev­el. Moreover, the ­recent intro­duc­tion of ­high-res­o­lu­tion scan­ners for imag­ing radio­trac­er dis­tri­bu­tions in ­small ani­mals ­offers an unprec­e­dent­ed oppor­tu­nity to ­study inflam­ma­tion in inte­grat­ed liv­ing ­systems with­out the ­need to use iso­lat­ed tis­sues. This ­review ­presents a ­short descrip­tion of ­some of the ­most com­mon radio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and of the poten­tial ­role of nucle­ar imag­ing tech­niques in the ­study of inflam­ma­tion.