Article Medical Imaging and Used Nanoparticles as Contrast Agents: A Review

Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating, producing, and recognizing materials with new or enhanced properties at the nanoscale, which is defined as ۱۰۰ nanometers or less. Because of its features such as increased surface area, structural diversity, physical and chemical properties, nanoparticles have been used in preclinical and clinical research. Medical imaging is an interesting technology that is widely employed in many biomedical research domains. The contrast agents employed in imaging today, have very short half-lives and poor spatial resolution, more efficient methods are required. Special tissue imaging with nanotechnology is being developed to help diagnose the disease in its early stages, even before the disease manifests, staging the disease, and monitoring treatment. We conducted a review of the literature of PubMed, Ovid Medline, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science databases with no limitations regarding the date of the papers, based upon the following keywords: “Medical imaging, Nanoparticles, and Contrast agent”. Based on the results obtained in this study, various nanoparticles including magnetic nanoparticles (iron oxide), gold nanoparticles, silica nanoparticles, and quantum dot nanoparticles, can be used in various imaging techniques to improve the properties and sensitivity. Because of their superior contrast, low toxicity, biocompatibility, durability, and biodegradability in terms of preventing detrimental organ buildup, various nanoparticles (including magnetic nanoparticles (iron oxide), gold nanoparticles, silica nanoparticles, quantum dot nanoparticles, lipid-based nanoparticles, ferritin nanoparticles, viral nanoparticles) outperform molecular-based contrast agents. Natural nanoparticles (lipid-based nanoparticles, ferritin nanoparticles, viral nanoparticles) have a number of advantages over synthetic nanoparticles, including precisely defined dimensions, biocompatibility, biodegradability, and immune system non-stimulation. Natural nanoparticles are also more compatible with the body and the environment than synthetic nanoparticles. The findings of this study show that the nanoparticles we looked at have a number of advantages over common pharmaceutical agents and that they could be used in medical imaging, as well as imaging cellular function and tracking molecular processes in living organisms without causing them to be disturbed. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that nanoparticle-based molecular imaging applications are moving towards clinical applications, but aggregation and storage in clinical settings have remained a challenge.

Keywords:

Medical imaging , Nanoparticles , Contrast agent