Assessing immunotherapy through cellular and molecular imaging

Abstract

Molecular medicine is focusing its attention on developing immunotherapeutic strategies that engage the immune system to combat a number of human diseases, including cancer. As a result, great emphasis has been placed on enhancing existing imaging modalities and developing new imaging techniques in order to assess the in vivo consequences of a given immunotherapy. Recently, improvements in the resolution and sensitivity of existing in vivo imaging modalities, including computed tomography (CT), ultrasound (US), positron emission tomography (PET), single positron emission tomography (SPECT), optical imaging (OI), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), have evolved enormously. In this chapter, each modality, used either individually or together as multi-modal hybrid imaging techniques, will be evaluated in the context of how they contribute to assessing immunotherapies in vivo in preclinical and clinical settings.