Sachin Jagdale
Molecular imaging, particularly optical imaging has begun to get recognition in the field of image-guided surgery. This form of interoperative florescence imaging will minimise errors during surgery, protecting vital tissues such as nerves from inadvertent damage during surgery. Dr Rao Papineni, an Indian origin scientist from Carestream Health Inc, US, has teamed up with a few research groups at Baylor College of Medicine; to identify and evaluate near-IR fluorescence bound plant lectin as a suitable candidate for a surgical nerve contrast molecular probe.
Papineni informs, “This particular lectin is originally isolated from wheat. Other investigators in this work include Dr Steen Pedersen and Dr Pautler of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston and Dr Daniel Kim, a neurosurgeon at University of Texas. Dr Scott Wellnitz, a post-doc had screened several of these sugar binding plant lectins from lentils, legumes, and cereals during the process of identification.”
Papineni will be reporting the findings at the World Molecular Imaging Congress, WMIC 2012, to be held at Ireland on September 8, 2012. Papineni indicated that stringent assessment such as toxicity issues and other side-effects are needed, before such a spray can be used by surgeons in clinics to distinguish nerve endings during surgical procedures. These optical-image guided surgical techniques are expected to ensure best outcome for the patients through protection of vital organs.
EH News Bureau
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