Contact: Diana Lutz
dlutz@wustl.edu
314-935-5272
Washington University in St. Louis

An Early Warning of Cancer?

Caption: One of the most exciting uses of photoacoustic tomography is to measure oxygen metabolism, a marker for cancer that may permit much earlier diagnosis than is now possible. In this example, melanoma tumor cells were injected into a mouse ear on day one. By day seven, there were noticeable changes in the blood flow rate (top graph, right), and the metabolic rate of oxygen usage (bottom graph, right). Counterintuitively, the tumor did not increase the oxygen extraction fraction (middle graph). MT stands for melanoma tumor and VD for vasodilation. The colors correspond to depth, with blue being superficial and red deep.

Credit: Junjie Yao/Lihong Wang

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