Part II: targeted particles for imaging of anticancer immune responses

The interaction of dendritic cells (DCs) and T cells has been the cornerstone of approaches to cancer immunotherapy. Antitumoral immune responses can be elicited by delivering cancer antigens to DCs. As antigen presenting cells, these DCs activate cancer antigen specific T cells. Whereas the first part of the review discusses methods for delivery of cancer vaccines to DCs, in this part the focus is on the potential role of nanoscopic devices for molecular imaging of these immune responses. Nanoscopic devices could potentially deliver tracking molecules to DCs, enabling monitoring of DCs and/or T cell activation and tumoricidal activity during immunotherapy, using non-invasive imaging modalities such as nuclear imaging (single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET)), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and optical imaging.