Imaging Beyond Seeing: Early Prognosis of Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Assessing cancer response to therapeutic interventions has been realized as an important course to early predict curative efficacy and treatment outcomes due to tumor heterogeneity. Compared to the traditional invasive tissue biopsy method, molecular imaging techniques have fundamentally revolutionized the ability to evaluate cancer response in a spatiotemporal manner. The past few years has witnessed a paradigm shift on the efforts from manufacturing functional molecular imaging probes for seeing a tumor to a vantage stage of interpreting the tumor response during different treatments. This review is to stand by the current development of advanced imaging technologies aiming to predict the treatment response in cancer therapy. Special interest is placed on the systems that are able to provide rapid and noninvasive assessment of pharmacokinetic drug fates (e.g., drug distribution, release, and activation) and tumor microenvironment heterogeneity (e.g., tumor cells, macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs), T cells, and inflammatory cells). The current status, practical significance, and future challenges of the emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology and machine learning in the applications of medical imaging fields is overviewed. Ultimately, the authors hope that this review is timely to spur research interest in molecular imaging and precision medicine.

Nanomedicine embraces cancer radio-immunotherapy: mechanism, design, recent advances, and clinical translation

“…Support of evidence-based medicines and the use of artificial intelligence in medical imaging analysis could help in addressing these challenges. 139…”

Fluorination Effects on the Drug Delivery Property of Cylindrical Polymer Brushes

“…Nowadays, cancer is still the chief cause of premature death worldwide despite the rapid development of medical technology. , For delivering anticancer therapeutics more efficiently, nanocarriers have been developed to target tumors through the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect and tumor-binding ligands. − However, due to the various biological and pathological barriers in vivo, the tumor delivery efficiency is still at low levels, resulting in the clinical translation of nanocarriers being in its infancy. , …”

Targeted Delivery of Drugs and Genes Using Polymer Nanocarriers for Cancer Therapy

“…However, traditional therapies are only effective for some early malignant tumors [27][28][29], and the main reasons for eventual failure of tumor treatment are metastasis [30], recurrence [31], heterogeneity [32], chemotherapy resistance [33], and avoidance of immune surveillance [34]. Chemotherapy is mainly achieved by using chemotherapeutic drugs to kill cancer cells [35,36].…”