Unmet Need
Peripheral nerve injuries require optimally timed intervention to maximize functional recovery and minimize permanent nerve death and negative impacts to quality of life. Current treatment plans rely primarily on monitoring for spontaneous healing or an indication that there must be surgical intervention, an approach that hinges on accurate imaging, judgment, and patient compliance. Especially for closed nerve injuries, these evaluations remain difficult for accurate treatment planning because of difficulty in characterizing the internal architecture of nerves. Therefore, there is a need for non-invasive, high-resolution imaging techniques specific to peripheral nerve injuries to better assess spontaneous recovery and/or correctly time surgical intervention.
Value Proposition
· Specific to peripheral nerve injuries, which are often difficult to access in closed traumas
· Improved prognostic and treatment plan instead of reliance on follow-up monitoring
· Leverages innate selectivity for injury sites via disruption of blood-nerve barrier
· Target compatible with multiple imaging modalities for future flexible applications
Technology Description
The disclosed technology identifies similar compounds to an endogenous protein to identify peripheral nerve injuries via positron emission tomography, intraoperative near-infrared imaging, and photoacoustic imaging. Due to the blood-nerve barrier (BNB) that is disrupted in many surgically necessary peripheral nerve injuries, this compound preferentially labels areas of nerve damage through the disrupted BNB.
Stage of Development
Animal model studies for a preliminary formulation have been conducted, and next steps involve specification of imaging modality, pharmacokinetic studies, and safety/efficacy trials.
Data Availability
Data available upon request.
Publication
N/A
