Dynamic blood flow phantom for in vivo liquid biopsy standardization

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Optical Imaging
• Medical Diagnostics

Background:

• In vivo liquid biopsy, particularly photoacoustic (PA) methods, shows promise for early disease detection (cancer, infections, cardiovascular disorders).
• Standardization is lacking, hindering validation of sensitivity, accuracy, and reproducibility for techniques detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs), bacteria, and clots.
• Current methods require robust calibration tools to ensure reliable diagnostic performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the demand for standardization in in vivo liquid biopsy techniques.
• To introduce a novel dynamic blood vessel phantom for calibrating advanced detection platforms.
• To enable accurate calibration of photoacoustic (PA) flow cytometry for enhanced diagnostic capabilities.

Main Methods:

• Developed a dynamic blood vessel phantom simulating normal and abnormal blood cells in flow.
• Utilized silica microspheres for white blood cells/platelets and hemoglobin/melanin-filled capsules for red blood cells/melanoma CTCs.
• Employed the phantom for calibrating a photoacoustic (PA) flow cytometry platform with high-speed signal processing.

Main Results:

• Successfully demonstrated the use of dynamic cell flow phantoms for PA flow cytometry calibration.
• Achieved high-speed signal processing for accurate detection and characterization of phantom cells.
• Validated the phantom's ability to mimic biological components for calibration purposes.

Conclusions:

• Dynamic cell flow phantoms with tailored properties are effective for standardizing in vivo flow cytometry.
• These phantoms can serve as a crucial tool for calibrating PA, fluorescent, and Raman detection methods.
• The developed phantom advances the establishment of reliable standardization for liquid biopsy techniques.