Potential ability of hematoporphyrin to enhance an optical coherence tomographic image of gastric cancer in vivo in mice.

An ideal diagnostic system for the tumor tissues should be able to detect and define the location of tumor tissues and the early development of malignant diseases. There is great need for enhancement of imaging ability to tumor tissues. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is used in detection and location of varied tumor tissues. In order to improve the sensitivity and specificity of an OCT image, hematoporphyrin as a new type of contrast agent was used in this study. The orthotopic graft model of gastric cancer in nude mice was used. The image formations of the tumor tissues without and with injection of hematoporphyrin in vivo were obtained by an OCT system at a 1,310 nm central wavelength. The experimental results showed that the tumor tissues accumulated with hematoporphyrin have an ability of light absorption which results in the increase of signal attenuation in the gastric cancer tissues, and that the boundary between the tumor tissues and surrounding normal tissues was perfectly defined owing to the accumulation of hematoporphyrin. From the experimental results, it is found that hematoporphyrin, a photosensitizing agent, could be used as a contrast agent for OCT imaging of tumor tissues, which offer an effective OCT image method for clinical detection and localization of tumor tissues in vivo.