Experimental Study Of Ultrasound Microbubble In Diagnosis Of Metastatic Lymph Nodes Of Squamous Cell Carcinoma In Cheek

Background and Objective: The risk of cervical lymph nodal metastases is related to the stage and is significantly affected treatment of squamous cell carcinoma in tongue or cheek. Timely diagnosis and treatment of patients with metastatic lymph nodes of the neck is an important factor to improve survival rates. In recent years, a growing number of researchers using ultrasonic tissue characterization for quantitative evaluation of lesions, and the more application method is ultrasonic tissue characterization of the video method, that is, echo intensity, at the same time, the new ultrasound microbubbles with a combination of second harmonic generation, enhanced the effect of contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Ultrasound microbubble (UM) is an ultrasound contrast agent which developed in recent years. Ultrasound microbubble produce contrast effects by changing the ultrasound characteristics of organizations, for imaging of human blood,solid organ. Ultrasound microbubble packages together by the gas and the micro-bubble envelope.The gases are: air, sulfur hexafluoride gas, perfluorocarbon gas.Because the fluorine-containing gas is inert gas, large molecular weight, poor solubility and disseminated in the blood, good stability, not only through the pulmonary circulation, but also through the microcirculation of capillary network, a wide range of applications. Material coated microbubble is: human albumin, lipid material, palmitic acid, polymers etc.The diameter of Microbubble is about 5μm. After inject into Blood circulation, ultrasound microbubble change the effection between Acoustic and tissue through alter the sound attenuation,sound velocity and enhanced scattering and so on, so that the regional blood flow echo signal in subjects enhanced. At the same time, the different uptake between normal tissue and lesions to contrast agent, while enhance signals of blood flow; it can significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio, thereby enhance the gray-scale imaging of tissue. Typically, people injected ultrasound microbubble into the body by the blood vessels, in order to achieve good imaging of blood vessels and parenchyma organ. However, microbubbles can not get to certain organs or pre-arrival microbubble concentration has been reduced and unable to obtain satisfactory imaging, so import by vascular limit the scope of the study of ultrasound, especially in the lymphatic system. The advantage of ultrasound examination is non-invasive, so the indirect injection of lymphatic system was putted on the research agenda, this method is known as the organization injection, inject Colored injection into the space of tissues and organs. Capillary endothelial cells have open space, with injection pressure and the spread of the role of injection, injection can inject into the capillary, so that injection can go into lymphatic capillaries, the lymphatic vessels and lymph nodes can be clearly showed[1]. In this study, apply self-made ultrasound to explore the changes of the echo intensity and the effect of imaging before and after inject ultrasound microbubble to metastatic lymph node of cheek carcinoma.Methods: After the lymphatic metastasis KM mice models were established, after inject the self-made ultrasound microbubble by the primary tumor, local massaged, Harmonic imaging methods was used to observe the Contrast effect of primary tumor and neck lymph nodes and compare the effect of echo intensity at the same time.Results:1. The lymphatic metastasis KM mice models were established successfully.2. The ultrasound microbubble with perfluorocarbon gas was prepared successfully.3. The level of echo intensity were significantly enhanced after inject self-made Microbubble ultrasound from primary tumor; the echo intensity (EI) was significantly higher than before.4. Experiment confirmed that ultrasound can be made as a contrast agent used in ultrasound imaging.Conclusions: The self-made contrast agent can obviously enhance the effect of ultrasonoscopy on the primary cancer and cervical metastatic lymph nodes of cheek carcinoma, meanwhile the echo intensity values significantly higher than those of the pre-contrast. Ultrasound microbubbles injected into tissues can enhance local lymph nodes, Self-made Fluorocabon-filled surfactant contrast agent injected from primary cancer, turn into lymph tract, can markably intense echoes of lymph node.