One challenge for development of non toxic micro-CT contrast agents is to load a high concentration of an X-ray attenuating element in a nanoparticulate formulation with particle size distribution small enough to avoid accumulation in lungs but large enough to avoid kidney filtration.  Binitio Biomedical’s Exia 160 and Exia 160XL meet these requirements with sufficient stealth properties for vascular imaging. In addition, they are made of components which are metabolized by catabolic pathways in the body thus enabling metabolic imaging of the myocardium and brown adipose tissue.

Credit:

Anatomical and functional imaging of myocardial infarction in mice using micro-CT and eXIA 160 contrast agent. Jeffrey R. Ashton. et al. Contrast Media Mol. Imaging 2014, 9 161–168. DOI: 10.1002/cmmi.