Indocyanine Green Within Polymeric Micelles as potential image agents to map Sentinel Lymph Nodes.

LECOT N.; FERNANDEZ LOMONACO M; CABRAL P.; GLISONI RJ.

Mar del Plata, Argentina

Congreso; Reunión Conjunta 2016 SAIC-SAI-SAFE NANOMED-AR; 2016

SAIC-SAI-SAFE NANOMED-AR

The imageguided surgery (IGS) has been widely used in clinic to map sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) of primary tumors from breast, skin, colorectal, lung and other sites. IGS require a near infrared (NIR) fluorescent contrast agent to locate the position of SLN. A sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), is a procedure in which SLN is identified, removed and examined to determine whether cancer cells are presented. A positive SLNB result indicates that cancer is present in SLN and possibly may be present in other regional lymph nodes and organs. NIR indocyanine green (ICG) is a FDA approved water soluble fluorophore, used for various diagnostic purposes for example IGS/SLNB. ICG tends to the selfaggregation in aqueous solution to form dimers, oligomers and polymers, depending the concentration used. As a result of this, the fluorescencequenching of ICG often occurs, reducing the fluorescence efficacy. On the other hand, due to the strong proteinbinding and the fast uptake to the liver, ICG displayed only a halflife of 3-4 minutes when injected intravenously. The aim of this work was to develop a novel micellar formulation containing ICG with improved physicochemical properties such as: (i) an optimal fluorescence, (ii) a better stability in aqueous medium and (iii) a longer halflife in circulation, using polymeric micelles (PMs), made of pristine poly(ethylene oxide)bpoly( propylene oxide) block copolymers (PEO-PPO) and their glucosylated derivatives, and finally to evaluate these nanocarriers loaded with ICG intradermally, in an in vivo assay against the commercially available free ICG in solution.