Gold nanoshells: Contrast agents for cell imaging by cardiovascular optical coherence tomography
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has gained considerable attention in interventional cardiovascular medicine and is currently used in clinical settings to assess atherosclerotic lesions and to optimize stent placement. Artery imaging at the cellular level constitutes the first step towards cardiovascular molecular imaging, which represents a major advance in the development of personalized noninvasive therapies. In this work, we demonstrate that cardiovascular OCT can be used to detect individual cells suspended in biocompatible fluids. Importantly, the combination of this catheter-based clinical technique with gold nanoshells (GNSs) as intracellular contrast agents led to a substantial enhancement in the backscattered signal produced by ...
