Functional Optical Biopsy of Epithelial Tumors

Call for Papers

The number of cancer patients is predicted to grow dramatically in the next decade, leading to a large increase in excisional biopsies for histopathological evaluation during diagnosis, surgery, and followup. Biopsy procedures can be undesirable, impossible, or with difficulties in preselecting lesions for excision. This leads to significant numbers of biopsies of healthy tissue or biopsies that cannot be classified. Conventional imaging techniques such as MRI and CT do not have sufficient resolution or sensitivity to diagnose the underlying pathology of small suspected epithelial lesions, so that novel diagnostic modalities are actively sought for.

Optical techniques are ideally suited for this purpose because they allow imaging of the lesion's superficial and internal morphology, in combination with assessment of functional parameters through quantitative measurement of the lesion's optical properties, thus providing a functional optical biopsy. Important physiologic indicators such as blood flow, perfusion can be inferred from the temporal and spatial dynamics of the detected signals. Others, such as oxygenation and cellular organization, can be directly related to absorption and scattering properties. Molecular imaging is possible using either intrinsic contrast (e.g., Raman spectroscopy) or endogenous contrast agents such as nanoparticles.

This special issue welcomes original research articles as well as review articles in the research area that addresses this triad of structural, functional, and molecular optical imaging of epithelial tumors. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Novel technology
  • New techniques or combinations of techniques to image tissue and quantify functional parameters
  • Instrumentation development, for example, probes and catheters, miniaturization, and so forth
  • Validation strategies for new technology, for example, phantom development, numerical/theoretical studies
  • Novel molecular probe platforms, for example, small molecules, antibodies, affibodies, nanoparticles, peptides, activatable, and so forth, that enhance disease specificity
• Functional and molecular imaging
  • Measurement of functional parameters including perfusion and oxygenation in conjunction with imaging
  • Molecular imaging, for example, imaging combined with fluorescence or Raman spectroscopy
  • NAOMI—nanoparticle-assisted molecular imaging—for example, using biofunctionalized nanoparticles for molecular imaging
  • Multimodality imaging agents, for example, optical + PET/SPECT/CT, MRI, ultrasound/photoacoustic

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbi/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Dirk J. Faber, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Physics, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, 1100 DD Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Guest Editors

• Melissa J. Suter, Pulmonary and Critical Care Unit and Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, 40 Blossom Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA
• Thomas D. Wang, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA