There is currently no solution for imaging fibrin-rich adhesions following surgery, yet the condition costs healthcare providers upwards of $2 billion annually. Over the past decade the development of ultrasound contrast agents has seen an increase in commercialization of generic microbubble formulations for standard diagnostic applications such as echocardiography. To enhance diagnostic power, molecularly targeted microbubbles are formulated with the addition of a ligand to the outer shell. The microbubble formulation must be modified so that the contrast agents are stable over time and targeted with the appropriate ligand while maintaining their echogenicity relative to surrounding soft tissue. We used a dual approach to look at microbubbles optically to predict their relative signal enhancement in vivo given their size distribution and concentration. An ImageJ macro script was developed based off BubblesizerJ, a previously developed open-source program. To confirm that modified microbubbles maintain acoustic properties relative to soft tissue, an agarose phantom model was developed that allows for high throughput testing of multiple microbubble formulations. / 2026-09-03T00:00:00Z
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/49203 |
| Date | 03 September 2024 |
| Creators | Harpster, Savannah Lee |
| Contributors | Mertz, Jerome C., Wong, Joyce Y. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ |
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