Detection and Description of Tissue Disease: Advances in the Use of Nanomedicine for Medical Imaging

Medical imaging off ers a powerful tool for the detection and characterization of disease. In order to take full advantage of the possibilities off ered, imaging agents with specific uptake in the target tissue are required. The development of these agents presents several challenges, as the agents must have sufficient absolute uptake at the target site to be detectable, must clear from other tissues to achieve contrast, and should be non-toxic and non-immunogenic. In this chapter, we discuss how the use of biomaterials has advanced the development of novel nanoparticles as contrast agents for computed tomography (CT) and ultrasound (US).