New Researches and Application Progress of Commonly Used Optical Molecular Imaging Technology

Table 1

Comparison among different types of molecular imaging.

Type of molecular imaging	Advantage	Disadvantage
Radionuclide imaging (including PET and SPECT)	(1) To be the earliest and matureset molecular imaging technique; (2) high sensitivity and quantifiability	(1) Ionizing radiation
CT	(1) High density resolution	(1) require the ionizing radiation
MRI	(1) Highly temporal and spatial resolution; (2) flexibility; (3) no ionizing radiation; (4) simultaneous acquisition of anatomical structure and physiological function	(1) Low sensitivity
US	(1) Quantitative data, real-time practice, noninvasiveness,; (2) relatively inexpensive cost,; (3) no ionizing radiation, and so forth; (4) as diagnostic imaging and therapeutic tool	(1) Low sensitivity
OMI	(1) Easy to use, fast, and affordable; (2) characterized by their high sensitivity; (3) labeled by many important genes and proteins; (4) causing no radiation damage on organism; (5) low cost effective, high cost performance, relatively stable technology	(1) Difficult to realize tomography; (2) near infrared and fluorescent signal, spatial resolution is low; (3) difficult to obtain the structure imaging of biological tissue; (4) the poor penetrating ability of in deep viscera in vivo