| Summary: | Nanoparticles of various kinds have generated considerable excitement as vehicles for drug delivery, and as imaging agents (Yen, 2013). Magnetic nanoparticles are of particular interest since their distribution in the body can be manipulated using magnetic fields, and they can also act as highly sensitive contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (Bonnemain, 1998; Wang, Hussain, & Krestin, 2001). For some applications, radionuclide imaging (Positron emission
tomography (PET) or Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)) offers advantages when used in conjunction with MRI, since the strengths of the two modalities, higher spatial resolution for MRI, but better quantification for PET or SPECT, are complementary (Bouziotis et al., 2012). On the other hand, the validity of dual modality imaging requires that the association between radioactive label and magnetic label remains intact in the human or animal body during the period of
study. Evaluation of the extent to which this requirement is true for PEGylated nanoparticles containing a core of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPION), and also labeled with a radioactive metal which is commonly used in nuclear medicine, indium-111, is a major component of this proposal.
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