Monitoring Oxygenation Levels Deep in the Tumor Core: Noninvasive Imaging of Hypoxia, Now in Real-Time 3D

Abstract Understanding the way hypoxia influences tumor biology is important; to study tumor hypoxia, simple and robust quantification of tissue oxygenation levels in vivo is necessary. Real-time noninvasive imaging without the use of expensive large equipment (PET or MRI) is most desirable. Photoacoustic imaging, in the form of volumetric multispectral optoacoustic tomography, as described in this issue of Cancer Research, paves the way for tumor hypoxia studies using an intrinsic optical contrast agent (hemoglobin), up to cm depth and 0.1-mm spatial resolution, in real-time 3D. This approach may find use in the clinic to assess tumor status and therapeutic efficacy. See related article by Ron et al., p. 4767