Advances and perspectives in near‐infrared fluorescent organic probes for surgical oncology

Abstract

Surgical resection of solid tumors is currently the most efficient and preferred therapeutic strategy for treating cancer. Despite significant medical, technical, and scientific advances, the complete treatment of this lethal disease is still a challenging task. New imaging techniques and contrast agents are urgently needed to improve cytoreductive surgery and patient outcomes. Tumor‐targeted probes are valuable for guiding a surgical resection of tumor from subjective judgments to visual inspection. Near‐infrared (NIR) fluorescent imaging is a promising technology in preclinical and clinical tumor diagnosis and therapy. The rapid development in NIR fluorophores with improved optical properties, targeting strategies, and imaging devices has brought about prospective study of novel NIR nanomaterials for intraoperative tumor detection. In this review, we summarize the recent development in NIR‐emitting organic fluorophores and cancer‐targeting strategies that specifically target and accumulate in tumors for the molecular imaging of cancerous cells. We believe this technique utilizing new fluorescent probes with an intraoperative optical imaging capacity could provide a more sensitive and accurate method for cancer resection guidance, thereby resulting in better surgical outcomes. This article is categorized under: Diagnostic Tools > in vivo Nanodiagnostics and Imaging Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Nanoscale Systems in Biology

Optical and magnetic resonance imaging approaches for investigating the tumour microenvironment: state-of-the-art review and future trends

“…This is rapidly changing commensurate with the development of exciting novel applications in which optical imaging has shown promise in both preclinical and clinical settings, such as fluorescenceguided intra-operative imaging and surgery where tumour margins can be established and residual tumours can be identified, based on the detection of TME biomarkers. [360][361][362][363] Tumour hypoxia has been known to affect cancer metastasis and to perturb the effectiveness of drugs. Therefore, various new and more sensitive fluorescent dye molecules have been developed that employ fluorescence lifetime change as the indicator of dissolved oxygen.…”

Recent advances in development of dendritic polymer‐based nanomedicines for cancer diagnosis

“…Optical imaging probes, such as small molecular dyes (cyanine dye), quantum dots (CdSe), carbon dots, are often accompanied with drawbacks, including low water solubility, toxicity, aggregation‐induced quenching, and photobleaching (C. Chen, Tian, Zeng, Chu, & Liu, 2020; L. Luo, Liu, et al, 2018; D. Xu, Li, Chu, Zhang, & Liu, 2020). Encapsulation of these optical agents into a dendritic polymer, either physically locating in the interior cavity or acting as a core of the dendrimer, has been proposed to address these issues.…”

“…Optical imaging probes, such as small molecular dyes (cyanine dye), quantum dots (CdSe), carbon dots, are often accompanied with drawbacks, including low water solubility, toxicity, aggregation-induced quenching, and photobleaching (C. Chen, Tian, Zeng, Chu, & Liu, 2020;L. Luo, Liu, et al, 2018;D. Xu, Li, Chu, Zhang, & Liu, 2020).…”

Superior Fluorescent Nanoemulsion Illuminates Hepatocellular Carcinoma for Surgical Navigation

“…As the only near-infrared (NIR) fluorophore approved for surgery intraoperative guidance, indocyanine green (ICG), which emits at ∼800 nm, effectively minimizes photo scattering, absorption and tissue autofluorescence while maximizing tissue penetration depths to several centimeters ( Zhang et al, 2017 ). With the aid of ICG-guided intraoperative imaging, a fluorescent edge of the cancerous tissue can be observed during surgery for margin delineation between cancer and adjacent healthy tissue ( Gotoh et al, 2009 ; Hirche et al, 2010 ; Xu et al, 2020 ). Although it holds great promise in improving intraoperative decision-making, this untargeted small-molecule dye still suffers from non-specific binding and usually high background noise.…”