Nanoimaging

B.A. Goins and W.T. Phillips, Eds.

Singapore: Pan Stanford Publishing, 2011, 298 pages, $149.95

Nanocarriers have been used extensively to effectively deliver drug molecules to cancer tissue and cells and to tumor vessels. Nanocarriers also can incorporate different kinds of agents such as drugs, imaging probes, and specific ligands. There have been significant advances in the fabrication of new nanostructures, including nanoparticles, as well as new imaging equipment and contrast agents.

This 13-chapter book is part of the Pan Stanford Series on Biomedical Nanotechnology and devoted especially to reviewing the current status of the use of nanoparticles in imaging applications in vivo. Chapter I deals with nanoparticles for oncologic imaging. Chapters II–V focus on in vivo imaging of iron oxide particles and liposomes. Chapters VI–XII highlight the use of new nanoparticles that are currently at the preclinical stage of testing, such as quantum dots, dendrimers, polymer-based nanoparticles, gold nanoshells, carbon nanotubes, and metal nanorods. The final chapter, XIII, discusses microbubbles—ultrasound contrast agents with a diameter on the order of micrometers.

This book has attempted to represent the major clinical imaging modalities such as MR imaging, CT, PET, SPECT, ultrasonography, and optical imaging. The book also highlights the specific advantages of nanoparticles for drug delivery and imaging applications. The versatile nature of nanoparticles allows for their use as multimodality imaging agents as well as theranostics for carrying both diagnostic and therapeutic agents. The figures are clear and useful. Readers will find that principles learned from the in vivo imaging of one type of nanoparticle are useful for investigations of other types of nanoparticles. I highly recommend this book to imaging scientists, molecular biologists, academic radiologists, and oncologists.

• © 2013 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Inc.