Illuminating neuroblastoma tumors with fluorescence

A recent publication in Scientific Reports by PhD student Lianne Wellens shows how research and clinic at the Princess Máxima Center work closely together to improve the treatment of patients. The project she published on is supervised by Anne Rios, group leader imaging technology, and pediatric surgeon Marc Wijnen. Read the article here.

This project was realized in collaboration with Alexander Vahrmeijer's research group at the Leiden University Medical Center with PhD student Marion Deken as co-author. The research was in part made possible by financial support from the Villa Joep foundation.The collaborative approach outlines how a new fluorescent agent can be used to neuroblastoma to light up tumor tissue during surgery. This could greatly help the surgeons to remove the tumor more precisely and with fewer complications. 

Lianne Wellens: “We are very enthusiastic about the results, because we believe that the so-called anti-GD2-IRDye800CW will be able to make an important contribution to treatments for children with neuroblastoma in the future. The research has so far been carried out with model systems in the laboratory. The next step is to confirm our research in patients during surgery”