Quantitative in vivo imaging of the lung using time-domain fluorescence measurements

Abstract

In this paper, nebulized or intravenous cetuximab (also known as Erbitux) labeled with NIR dyes is administered in the lungs of the mouse and imaged using a time-domain fluorescence imaging system (Optix ® ). Time resolved measurements provide lifetime of the fluorescent probes. In addition, through time-of-flight information contained in the data, one can also assess probe localization and concentration distribution quantitatively. Results shown include suppression of tissue autofluorescence by lifetime gating and recovery of targeted and non-targeted distributions of cetuximab labeled with the NIR fluorophores.