Promise and progress for functional and molecular imaging of response to targeted therapies

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Medical Imaging
• Pharmacology

Background:

• Biomarkers are crucial for predicting and monitoring anticancer therapy response.
• Molecular and functional imaging are promising non-invasive biomarkers for longitudinal assessment in patients and tumors.
• Despite their potential, imaging endpoints are underutilized in clinical trial design due to cost concerns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the progress of imaging in response to novel anticancer therapies.
• To highlight the potential of imaging biomarkers to enhance drug development efficiency.
• To discuss the theranostic promise of imaging for predicting targeted therapy response.

Main Methods:

• Review of current literature on molecular and functional imaging in oncology.
• Focus on imaging modalities like Diffusion-Weighted MRI, DCE-MRI, and FDG-PET.
• Analysis of imaging response to targeted therapies against PI3K/AKT, HIF-1alpha, and VEGF pathways.

Main Results:

• Imaging biomarkers can improve efficiency across all phases of drug development, from discovery to Phase III.
• Specific imaging techniques show potential for in vivo pharmacodynamics and patient enrichment.
• Progress is being made in applying imaging to new targeted anticancer therapies.

Conclusions:

• Molecular and functional imaging are valuable tools for anticancer drug development.
• Integrating imaging endpoints can increase efficiency and reduce costs in clinical trials.
• The ultimate goal is theranostic application of imaging to predict treatment response before therapy initiation.