Liquid-assisted pulsed laser ablation: A novel route to produce multifunctional contrast agents for multimodal imaging diagnosis

Nowadays, multimodal diagnosis by combining several imaging techniques, such as mammography, magnetic resonance imaging and computed X-ray tomography is playing a leading role in the diagnosis of breast cancer.
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However clinical application of this multimodal approach is still problematic due the lack of appropriate commercial contrast agents showing capabilities to distinguish between malignant tumours and benign abnormal masses. Hybrid nanoparticles, which contain both magnetic and radiopaque elements are a promising alternative for the generation of these multimodal contrast agents due to their unique characteristics, such as: high biocompatibility, contrast enhancement efficacy, cost effectiveness and colloidal stability in the physiological environment.
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Unfortunately, conventional chemical procedures to synthesize multimodal nanoparticles in liquid media used in laboratory are not well standardized and cost-effective methods to produce large quantities of nanoparticles.
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