Abstract

Imaging innovations for cancer therapy response monitoring

Author(s): Ali Sadeghi-Naini, Omar Falou, John M Hudson, Colleen Bailey, Peter N Burns, Martin J Yaffe, Greg J Stanisz, Michael C Kolios and Gregory J Czarnota

Innovative imaging approaches for monitoring various types of cancer treatment response are discussed in this paper. Radionuclide imaging has demonstrated favorable capabilities for imaging tumor response based on the binding of radionuclides to the cells responding to the treatment. MRI has recently been utilized for detecting the cellular changes associated with apoptosis. Dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound has been proposed for monitoring therapeutics that target blood vessels affecting perfusion. Quantitative ultrasound has been demonstrated to be capable of differentiating between viable cell clusters and clusters responding to treatment. Diffuse optical imaging and photoacoustic imaging have been applied for evaluating functional changes transpiring in soft tissue, such as oxygenation status, during cancer treatment. Considerable developments introduced to improve the precision of treatment response monitoring are expected in the near future to provide clinical approaches to personalized therapy in which therapies can be adapted based on the detection of functional physiology-based responses.