Ultrasound Biomicroscopy of Cancer Therapy Effects: Correlation between Light and Electron Microscopy, and a New Non-Invasive Ultrasound Imaging Method for Detecting Apoptosis

Abstract We have discovered that high-frequency ultrasound imaging, or ultrasound biomicroscopy, can be used to detect apoptosis in a number of experimental systems. We have shown that such detection with 30-40 MHz ultrasound is possible using cells in an in vitro system (AML-3 leukemia cells) made to undergo apoptosis in response to treatment with a variety of cancer killing chemotherapeutic drugs. We have shown that ultrasound biomicroscopy can also detect programmed cell death in tissues made to undergo apoptosis in response to photodynamic therapy, currently an experimental cancer treating regimen. Lastly, we have shown that this ultrasound imaging approach works in vivo, using living animals where apoptosis has been induced similarly using photodynamic therapy. Specifically, apoptotic cells and regions of apoptosis in tissues exhibit up to a 36-fold increase in ultrasound backscatter intensity permitting this type of cell death to be readily discriminated from surrounding viable tissue.