A Dual Modality System for Simultaneous Monitoring of a Bi-Functional Optical & MRI Contrast Agent for Cancer Detection

Yuting Lin¹, Mehmet B. Unlu¹, Brian Grimmond², Anup Sood², Egidijus E. Uzgiris³, Orhan Nalcioglu¹, Gultekin Gulsen¹

Multi-modality imaging is becoming a trend in developing new generation in vivo imaging techniques for diagnosis. Recently, our group has developed a hybrid MRI/DOT multi-modality imaging system. In such a multi-modality system, each modality measures a different parameter set, which make it difficult to cross-validate the parameters measured by different modalities. An alternative solution is using a bi-functional contrast agent that provides contrast for both optical and MRI simultaneously. Here, our in vivo small animal study is the first to validate a true multi-modality system with a true multi-modality contrast agent.