Photoacoustic Imaging: An Emerging Technology for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Tumors

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Background

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is an emerging technology that uniquely combines the optical contrast with ultrasonic detection. It not only breaks through the barrier in imaging depth for high-resolution optical imaging, but could also take great advantages of ample optical biomarkers for functional and molecular imaging, which are both equally important for the study of oncology. For instance, based on the optical absorption of hemoglobin in red blood cells, PAI can achieve label-free imaging of tumor vasculature and its oxygen saturation, which can help with the diagnosis of tumors. Over the past 20 years, many novel PAI methods and molecular probes have been developed for the pre-clinical study, diagnosis, and treatment of tumors. Moreover, various PAI systems have been employed in clinical trials, yielding promising results for the diagnosis of tumors, including skin cancer, thyroid cancer, and breast cancer.

Although many achievements have been made, PAI is still in its early stage for tumor study and its value needs to be further validated. Clinical studies of tumors with PAI are still very limited; there needs to be more clinical trials with more cases and tumor types to be explored, as well as new PAI methods to be developed for clinical translation. Then, we can fairly assess the clinical value of PAI in tumor diagnosis or treatment. Besides, for preclinical tumor study, there is a great lack of powerful molecular targets that have high specificity, good biocompatibility, and high optical absorption in near infrared regions. In addition, it is also expected to have important findings for better understanding of tumor’s pathology aided by PAI.

This Research Topic will focus on PAI implementation for tumor study, including pre-clinical study, clinical translational study, and related novel imaging methods. New clinical tumor study results and new pathology findings aided by PAI are of great interest. This collection will include Original Research, Review, and Case Report articles - other submissions will also be reviewed if appropriate.

Manuscripts should focus on but are not limited to:

1. The clinical implementation of PAI in diagnosis and treatment of human tumors;
2. Advanced PAI systems for tumor study;
3. Advanced imaging reconstruction or processing methods for PAI tumor imaging;
4. Tumor related pathology study aided by PAI;
5. PA molecular imaging of tumors with novel contrast agents or probes;

Note: Submissions consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.

Keywords: Photoacoustic Imaging, Molecular Imaging, Tumor, Clinical Studies, Pathology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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