ABSTRACT
Comprehensive molecular analysis of individual tumors provides great potential for personalized cancer therapy. However, the presence of a particular genetic alteration is often insufficient to predict therapeutic efficacy. Drugs with distinct mechanisms of action can affect the biology of tumors in specific and unique ways. Therefore, assays that can measure drug-induced perturbations of defined functional tumor properties can be highly complementary to genomic analysis. PET provides the capacity to noninvasively measure the dynamics of various tumor biologic processes in vivo. Here, we review the underlying biochemical and biologic basis for a variety of PET tracers and how they may be used to better optimize cancer therapy.
Subject(s)
Biomarkers, Tumor/metabolism , Early Detection of Cancer/trends , Molecular Imaging/trends , Neoplasms, Experimental/diagnostic imaging , Neoplasms, Experimental/metabolism , Positron-Emission Tomography/trends , Animals , Biomarkers, Tumor/genetics , Drug Evaluation, Preclinical/trends , Humans , Neoplasms, Experimental/genetics , Precision Medicine/trends , Translational Research, Biomedical/trendsABSTRACT
Molecular imaging enables noninvasive characterization, quantification and visualization of biological and pathological processes in vivo at cellular and molecular level. It plays an important role in drug discovery and development. The skillful use of molecular imaging can provide unique insights into disease processes, which greatly aid in identifications of target. Importantly, molecular imaging is widely applied in the pharmacodynamics study to provide earlier endpoints during the preclinical drug development process, since it can be applied to monitor the effects of treatment in vivo with the use of biomarkers. Herein, we reviewed the application of molecular imaging technologies in antitumor drug development process ranging from identification of targets to evaluation of therapeutic effect.