Molecular imaging in oncology

Abstract

Cancer is a genetic disease that manifests in loss of normal cellular homeostatic mechanisms. The biology and therapeutic modulation of neoplasia occurs at the molecular level. An understanding of these molecular processes is therefore required to develop novel prognostic and early biomarkers of response. In addition to clinical applications, increased impetus for the development of such technologies has been catalysed by pharmaceutical companies investing in the development of molecular therapies. The discipline of molecular imaging therefore aims to image these important molecular processes in vivo. Molecular processes, however, operate at short length scales and concentrations typically beyond the resolution of clinical imaging. Solving these issues will be a challenge to imaging research. The successful implementations of molecular imaging in man will only be realised by the close co-operation amongst molecular biologists, chemists and the imaging scientists.

Choline-containing compounds quantification by 1H NMR spectroscopy using external reference and noise measurements

“…Among molecular imaging techniques, 1 H-MRS had gained large success as a viable tool to analyse metabolite content in tissues, opening a new way to characterize lesions detected by conventional MRI studies [35]. One advantage of 1 H-MRS is its ability to measure the concentration of biochemicals in regions of interest.…”