Towards Drug Delivery Control Using Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Three-Dimensional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

The purpose of this paper was to detect and separate the cluster intensity provided by Iron oxide nanoparticles (IO-NPs), in the MRI images, to investigate the drug delivery effectiveness. IO-NPs were attached to the macrophages and inserted into the eye of the inflamed mouse’s calf. The low resolution of MRI and the tiny dimension of the IO-NPs made the situation challenging. IO-NPs serve as a marker, due to their strong intensity in the MRI, enabling us to follow the track of the macrophages. An image processing procedure was developed to estimate the position and the amount of IO-NPs spreading inside the inflamed mouse leg. A fuzzy Clustering algorithm was adopted to select the region of interest (ROI). A 3D model of the femoral region was used for the detection and then the extraction IO-NPs in the MRI images. The results achieved prove the effectiveness of the proposed method to improve the control process of targeted drug delivered. It helps in optimizing the treatment and opens a promising novel research axis for nanomedicine applications.