Fluorescence lifetime and intensity detection of water-soluble hypericin accumulation in ex-vivo glioma, meningioma, and brain metastasis tissue
4 affiliations
- 1Department of Neurosurgery, Medical University Vienna
- 2Department of Medical Physics, Medical University of Vienna
- 3Hypericum LifeScience GmbH
- 4Diagnostic and Research Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Graz
Abstract
Fluorescence-guided surgery improves intraoperative brain tumor visualization, but currently available agents remain unreliable for several common entities, particularly lower-grade gliomas and lesions without visible 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA)-induced fluorescence. We prospectively analyzed 69 surgically obtained tumor specimens from 61 patients with WHO grade 4 gliomas, WHO grade 2/3 gliomas, meningiomas, and brain metastases before and after ex vivo incubation in 4 µM water-soluble high-load hypericin-polyvinylpyrrolidone complex (HHL-PVP). Fluorescence lifetime and intensity were quantified using a dual-tap CMOS camera system with a hypericin-specific 575–615 nm bandpass filter. HHL-PVP incubation significantly increased both fluorescence intensity and lifetime in all tumor entities, including specimens without visible 5-ALA fluorescence. An independently derived combined lifetime/intensity regression model discriminated pre- from post-incubation measurements with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.975, sensitivity of 98.6%, and specificity of 82.6%; entity-specific areas under the curve ranged from 0.933 to 1.000. These findings support robust hypericin-associated signal detection across major brain tumor entities after ex vivo incubation and provide a rationale for future in vivo evaluation of HHL-PVP in fluorescence-guided neuro-oncological surgery.
Related
- Hepatic Metastasis of Meningioma Treated with Partial Hepatectomy: A Case Report.
- Intraoperative indocyanine green fluorescence in canine meningioma: macroscopic visualization, immediate MRI correlation, and clinical outcomes : a case series.
- Weakly supervised attention-based learning supports breast cancer detection on deep ultraviolet-excitation fluorescence images
- Blood-based inflammatory biomarkers in ovarian cancer: addressing the challenge of early detection, metastasis, and prognostic stratification.
- Early Detection of Metastasis-Hypoxia Temporal Alterations in Orthotopic Breast Cancer Using Photoacoustic and Deuterium Metabolic Imaging: In Vivo Assessments.
BibTeX
@article{mischkulnig2026fluorescence,
title = {{Fluorescence lifetime and intensity detection of water-soluble hypericin accumulation in ex-vivo glioma, meningioma, and brain metastasis tissue}},
author = {Mario Mischkulnig and David Reichert and Lionel Wightman and Vanessa Roth and Marijke Hoelz and Alexandra Klang and Lisa I. Körner and Barbara Kiesel and Djenana Vejzovic and Mikael T. Erkkilae and Angelika Unterhuber and Rainer Leitgeb and Beate Rinner and Andreas Kubin and Marco Andreana and Georg Widhalm},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1038/s41598-026-62969-3},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-62969-3},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Fluorescence lifetime and intensity detection of water-soluble hypericin accumulation in ex-vivo glioma, meningioma, and brain metastasis tissue
AU - Mario Mischkulnig
AU - David Reichert
AU - Lionel Wightman
AU - Vanessa Roth
AU - Marijke Hoelz
AU - Alexandra Klang
AU - Lisa I. Körner
AU - Barbara Kiesel
AU - Djenana Vejzovic
AU - Mikael T. Erkkilae
AU - Angelika Unterhuber
AU - Rainer Leitgeb
AU - Beate Rinner
AU - Andreas Kubin
AU - Marco Andreana
AU - Georg Widhalm
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/01
JO - Scientific Reports
DO - 10.1038/s41598-026-62969-3
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-62969-3
AB - Fluorescence-guided surgery improves intraoperative brain tumor visualization, but currently available agents remain unreliable for several common entities, particularly lower-grade gliomas and lesions without visible 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA)-induced fluorescence. We prospectively analyzed 69 surgically obtained tumor specimens from 61 patients with WHO grade 4 gliomas, WHO grade 2/3 gliomas, meningiomas, and brain metastases before and after ex vivo incubation in 4 µM water-soluble high-load hypericin-polyvinylpyrrolidone complex (HHL-PVP). Fluorescence lifetime and intensity were quantified using a dual-tap CMOS camera system with a hypericin-specific 575–615 nm bandpass filter. HHL-PVP incubation significantly increased both fluorescence intensity and lifetime in all tumor entities, including specimens without visible 5-ALA fluorescence. An independently derived combined lifetime/intensity regression model discriminated pre- from post-incubation measurements with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.975, sensitivity of 98.6%, and specificity of 82.6%; entity-specific areas under the curve ranged from 0.933 to 1.000. These findings support robust hypericin-associated signal detection across major brain tumor entities after ex vivo incubation and provide a rationale for future in vivo evaluation of HHL-PVP in fluorescence-guided neuro-oncological surgery.
SN - 2045-2322
ER -