Protease Imaging May Track Mesothelioma
A chemical that turns certain extracellular enzymes fluorescent may offer an effective, non-invasive method for tracking the progression of malignant pleural mesothelioma. Pleural mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer of the membrane around the lungs. Because mesothelioma tumors tend to be thin and spread out, they are more difficult to ‘see’ with standard imaging methods than some solid tumors. Sometimes, surgery is the only reliable way to determine how fast and how large a mesothelioma tumor is growing. But researchers at Penn State and the University of Pennsylvania, one of the country’s most active mesothelioma research centers, say they have successfully used an optical imaging agent called ProSense 680 to measure the size of mesothelioma tumors in living mice. ProSense 680 is…