RADIOPHARMACOLOGY 

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine 2001 June;45(2):179-82

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Tumor angiogenesis targeting using imaging agents

Weber W. A., Haubner R., Vabuliene E., Kuhnast B., Wester H. J., Schwaiger M.

From the Department of Nuclear Medicine Technische Universität, München, Germany

The inhi­bi­tion of ­tumor ­induced angio­gen­esis is an ­emerging ther­a­peutic ­strategy in clin­ical ­oncology ­aimed at ­halting ­cancer pro­gres­sion by sup­pressing ­tumor ­blood ­supply. As ­anti-angio­genic ­therapy is pri­marily cytos­tatic and not cyto­toxic, the estab­lished cri­teria for ­assessing ­tumor ­response to ­chemo- and radio­therapy ­cannot be ­applied to ­anti-angio­genic ­therapy. There­fore, func­tional and molec­ular param­e­ters for ­imaging of ­tumor angio­gen­esis are ­being inten­sively ­studied. Com­puted tomog­raphy, mag­netic res­o­nance ­imaging, ultra­sound and scin­ti­graphic tech­niques can ­assess ­changes in vas­cular perme­ability and ­tumor ­blood ­flow ­during ­anti-angio­genic ­therapy. Scin­ti­graphic tech­niques, espe­cially posi­tron emis­sion tomog­raphy (PET), may be ­used to mon­itor the con­se­quences of ­anti-angio­genic ­therapy on ­tumor ­cell metab­olism, pro­life­ra­tion and apop­tosis. The ­high sen­si­tivity of PET ­which ­allows meas­ure­ments of ­tracer con­cen­tra­tions in the pico­molar ­range is prom­ising for the vis­u­al­iza­tion of spe­cific molec­ular tar­gets ­prior to ­therapy ­thus iden­ti­fying ­patients ­most ­likely ben­efit ­from a par­tic­ular ­form of ­anti-angio­genic ­therapy.