title: Functional and molecular imaging in cancer drug development.
abstract: Imaging biomarkers have a potential to identify key metabolic pathways that are up-regulated in cancer cells compared to normal cells. In early drug development, they can provide valuable information on the dissemination of the drug and estimate whether the drug reaches the target and, consequently, to determine the appropriate clinical benefit. The use of imaging as an early surrogate biomarker of response is also appealing, since it allows to tailor treatment regimens in individual patients. The aim of this review is to describe various imaging biomarkers covering most important cancer hallmarks such as cell death, proliferation, metabolism, vascularity, and hypoxia. We highlight the current status of using molecular imaging such as fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), fluorothymidine (FLT), fluoromisonidazole (FMISO), and fluoroazomycin arabinoside (FAZA) positron emission tomography (PET) as well as advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques such as dynamic contrast enhancing (DCE) and diffusion weighted (DW)-MRI, and their potential roles in cancer drug development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Translational Research, Radiotherapy and Imaging, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Vikram Rao
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Bollineni
authors.affiliation: Statistical Department, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Collette
authors.affiliation: Department of Translational Research, Radiotherapy and Imaging, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, Brussels, Belgium. yan.liu@eortc.be.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
keywords: Imaging biomarkers; advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques (DCE-, DW-MRI); cancer drug development; molecular imaging (FDG-, FLT-, FMISO-, FAZA-PET)