Near-infrared image-guided surgery

Near-infrared (NIR) image-guided surgery holds great promise for improved surgical outcomes. A number of NIR image-guided surgical systems are currently in preclinical and clinical development with a few approved for limited clinical use. In order to wield the full power of NIR image-guided surgery, clinically available tissue and disease-specific NIR fluorophores with a high signal-to-background ratio are necessary ¹⁾.