Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule-Functionalized Fe₃O₄@Au Nanoparticles for Coregistered Optoacoustic and Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Photothermal Therapy of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Early diagnosis and management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is important for improving the 5-year survival rate. Multimodal imaging is of great significance for obtaining complementary information, improving the efficacy of tumor detection, and monitoring HCC recurrence. The rational development of targeted nanoprobes with excellent performance is of great significance for the accurate diagnosis of HCC and image-guided photothermal therapy (PTT). In the present study, we synthesized a hybrid nanoprobe containing epithelial cell adhesion molecule-functionalized Fe3O4@Au nanoparticles as an HCC-targeted nanoprobe, which served as a dual-modal contrast agent for optoacoustic tomography (OAT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and as a photothermal sensitizer for PTT. Using this nanoprobe, we evaluated the application of coregistered OAT–MRI for the diagnosis and therapy of HCC to resolve an image alignment problem. Body-position variation in OAT and MRI was minimized using a specially designed 3D-printed dual-modality animal imaging bed constructed from polylactic acid. The registration accuracy of OAT–MRI data was further improved by a robust image registration protocol. Dual-modality coregistered imaging was performed for the early diagnosis of HCC and monitoring of curative effects. To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply a combination of a targeted nanoprobe and coregistration of OAT–MRI for the diagnosis and management of abdominal diseases.