Therapy Monitoring with Functional and Molecular MR Imaging

Abstract

Cancer therapy is mainly based on different combinations of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Additionally, targeted therapies (designed to disrupt specific tumor hallmarks, such as angiogenesis, metabolism, proliferation, invasiveness, and immune evasion), hormonotherapy, immunotherapy, and interventional techniques have emerged as alternative oncologic treatments. Conventional imaging techniques and current response criteria do not always provide the necessary information regarding therapy success particularly to targeted therapies. In this setting, MR imaging offers an attractive combination of anatomic, physiologic, and molecular information, which may surpass these limitations, and is being increasingly used for therapy response assessment.

Keywords: Anticancer treatments; Diffusion MR imaging; Functional imaging; MR imaging; Multiparametric imaging; Oncology; Perfusion imaging/methods; Tumor response.