An optical imaging technique that measures metabolic activity in cancer cells can differentiate breast cancer subtypes and detect responses to treatment as early as two days after therapy.
That's according to a new study published online in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Alex Walsh of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, and colleagues used a custom-built multiphoton microscope and paired it with a laser that causes two molecules involved in cellular metabolism, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), to light up, according to a statement released by AACR. They used filters to isolate the fluorescence released by the two molecules and determined the "redox ratio" between the two, which is a measure of cellular metabolism (Cancer Research, October 15, 2013).
When the group examined normal and cancerous breast cells under the microscope, the optical metabolic imaging (OMI) device generated distinct signals for the two types of cells. OMI could also differentiate between estrogen-receptor-positive, estrogen-receptor-negative, HER2-positive, and HER2-negative breast cancer cells, AACR said.
