High-frequency ultrasound analysis of post-mitotic arrest cell death

Non-invasive monitoring of cancer cell death would permit rapid feedback on treatment response. One technique showing such promise is quantitative ultrasound. High-frequency ultrasound spectral radiofrequency analysis was used to study cell death in breast cancer cell samples. Quantitative ultrasound parameters, including attenuation, spectral slope, spectral 0-MHz-intercept, midband fit, and fitted parameters displayed significant changes with paclitaxel-induced cell death, corresponding to observations of morphological changes seen in histology and electron microscopy. In particular, a decrease in spectral slope from 0.24±0.07 dB/MHz to 0.04±0.09 dB/MHz occurred over 24 hours of treatment time and was identified as an ultrasound parameter capable of differentiating post-mitotic arrest cell death from classical apoptosis. The formation of condensed chromatin aggregates of 1 micron or greater in size increased the number of intracellular scatterers, consistent with a hypothesis that nuclear material is a primary source of ultrasound scattering in dying cells. It was demonstrated that the midband fit quantitatively correlated to cell death index, with a Pearson R-squared value of 0.99 at p<0.01. These results suggest that high-frequency ultrasound can not only qualitatively assess the degree of cancer cell death, but may be used to quantify the efficacy of chemotherapeutic treatments.