An In Vivo Validation of the Application of Acoustic Radiation Force to Enhance the Diagnostic Utility of Molecular Imaging Using 3-D Ultrasound

Abstract For more than a decade, the application of acoustic radiation force (ARF) has been proposed as a mechanism to increase ultrasonic molecular imaging (MI) sensitivity in vivo . Presented herein is the first noninvasive in vivo validation of ARF-enhanced MI with an unmodified clinical system. First, an in vitro optical-acoustical setup was used to optimize system parameters and ensure sufficient microbubble translation when exposed to ARF. 3-D ARF-enhanced MI was then performed on 7 rat fibrosarcoma tumors using microbubbles targeted to αv β3 and nontargeted microbubbles. Low-amplitude (