CT Imaging of Cancer and Normal Cells with Gold Nanoparticles as Contrast Agent: An In-Vitro Study

Introduction: Computed tomography (CT) imaging has progressively developed from only structural imaging tool into hybrid diagnostic imaging such as PET-CT and SPECT to aid clinicians in diagnosis and treatment for cancer. Nowadays, researchers have found that CT might have a good prospect to become a molecular imaging modality. This research aim was to study the effects of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as contrast agent in computed tomography (CT) imaging. Methods: Samples of H2O, hFOB, HeLa, and MCF-7 with and without AuNPs were scanned at 80, 100, 120, and 140 kVp to investigate the influence of tube potential settings towards CT enhancement in Hounsfield (HU) unit. Regions of interests (ROIs) were drawn and the CT values were compared. Results: The results show noticeable contrast enhancements of the samples incubated with AuNPs in CT images compared to the samples without AuNPs. hFOB, HeLa, and MCF-7 with AuNPs show contrast enhancement of 1.3 to 1.5 times greater than the cell lines samples without AuNPs. The outcomes also demonstrate that samples irradiated with 80 kVp yield improved CT values compared to other tube potential settings. Conclusion: The results obtained evidenced AuNPs have the potential to be a contrast agent for CT molecular imaging based on their ability in contrast enhancement.