Lighten up tumors

Villanueva, M. Teresa

doi:10.1038/nrclinonc.2011.146

Research Highlight
Published: 27 September 2011

Imaging

Lighten up tumors

M. Teresa Villanueva

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 8, page 628 (2011)Cite this article

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Ovarian cancer is the most lethal of all the gynecologic malignancies. The lack of signs and symptoms contribute to the poor prognosis of this cancer as by the time is detected, it has often reached late stages. Even when the tumor is detected and patients undergo cytoreductive surgery, a high percentage of these resections are incomplete and some residual tumor remains, resulting in relapse due to regrowth of the cancer cells.

Folate receptor (FR-α) is overexpressed in nearly 95% of epithelial ovarian tumors and its ligand, folate, has already been used conjugated to several tracers in imaging techniques such as PET and CT. In their study, Ntziachristos and colleagues used folate conjugated to fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC). The complex folate–FITC is internalized on binding to FR-α, rendering the cells fluorescent and detectable by the multispectral fluorescence camera specially designed for this project.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

van Dam, G. M. et al. Intraoperative tumor-specific fluorescence imaging in ovarian cancer by folate receptor-α targeting: first in-human results. Nat. Med. doi:10.1038/nm.2472

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