Abstract
In view of the trend towards personalized treatment strategies for (cancer) patients, there is an increasing need to noninvasively determine individual patient characteristics. Such information enables physicians to administer to patients accurate therapy with appropriate timing. For the noninvasive visualization of disease-related features, imaging biomarkers are expected to play a crucial role. Next to the chemical development of imaging probes, this requires preclinical studies in animal tumour models. These studies provide proof-of-concept of imaging biomarkers and help determine the pharmacokinetics and target specificity of relevant imaging probes, features that provide the fundamentals for translation to the clinic. In this review we describe biological processes derived from the “hallmarks of cancer” that may serve as imaging biomarkers for diagnostic, prognostic and treatment response monitoring that are currently being studied in the preclinical setting. A number of these biomarkers are also being used for the initial preclinical assessment of new intervention strategies. Uniquely, noninvasive imaging approaches allow longitudinal assessment of changes in biological processes, providing information on the safety, pharmacokinetic profiles and target specificity of new drugs, and on the antitumour effectiveness of therapeutic interventions. Preclinical biomarker imaging can help guide translation to optimize clinical biomarker imaging and personalize (combination) therapies.
Highlights
In connection with the increasing trend towards personalized medicine, the development of imaging biomarkers and quantitative imaging techniques has been identified as a major research priority in medical imaging communities [1,2,3,4]
In this review we describe the state of the art and future perspectives of imaging biomarkers in preclinical in vivo oncological studies, Table 2 Overview of common in vivo small-animal imaging modalities
We have described a panel of biological targets derived from the Bhallmarks of cancer^ and indicated their potential for use as imaging biomarkers in oncology based on data obtained from preclinical studies in animal tumour models
Summary
In connection with the increasing trend towards personalized medicine, the development of imaging biomarkers and quantitative imaging techniques has been identified as a major research priority in medical imaging communities [1,2,3,4]. In the clinical as well as the preclinical research setting, imaging biomarkers can be a measure of anatomical, physiological/functional or molecular characteristics (Table 1). In a recent preclinical imaging study, Shoghi et al [57] evaluated the usefulness of this tracer in the measurement of the proliferative status of tumours and as a marker of early response.
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