Monitoring distribution of the therapeutic agent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) with hyperspectral excitation-resolved near-infrared fluorescence imaging

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is one of the most commonly used pharmaceutical drugs in life sciences. It has a wide spectrum of pharmacological effects, including anti-inflammatory effects, local analgesia, weak bacteriostasis and most importantly membrane penetration. We recently developed novel hyperspectral excitation-resolved near-infrared fluorescence imaging system (HER-NIRF) based on a continuous-wave wavelength-swept laser. In this study, this technique is applied for measuring the distribution of the therapeutic agent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) by utilizing solvatochromic shift in the spectral profile of albumin-bound Indocyanine green (ICG). Phantom experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the HER-NIRF system. The results show that the distribution of DMSO can be visualized in the wide-field reflection geometry.