Therapy Response Imaging In Oncology

This book is a detailed guide to therapy response imaging in cancer patients that fully takes into account the revolutionary progress and paradigm shift in treatment approaches for advanced disease. The opening chapters describe the role of imaging as a “common language” for tumor response evaluation in oncology and address challenges and strategies in the era of precision cancer therapy and cancer immunotherapy. Practical pitfalls are discussed, with emphasis on the importance of approaching cancer as a systemic disease and the need for increased awareness of drug toxicity due to novel therapies. Therapy response imaging in a wide range of cancer types is then comprehensively described and illustrated, using a disease-specific approach. A concluding section focuses on emerging approaches and future directions, including radiomics/radiogenomics, co-clinical imaging, and molecular and functional imaging. Therapy Response Imaging in Oncology will be of high value for radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and oncologists. It will also be of interest to cancer care providers and oncology trial investigators.

Measurement of solid tumor response to treatment relies mainly on imaging. WHO tumor response criteria and, more recently, RECIST (response evaluation criteria in solid tumors) have provided means to objectively measure tumor response in clinical trials with imaging. These guidelines have been rapidly adopted in clinical practice to monitor patient treatment and for therapy planning. However, relying only on anatomical information is not always sufficient when evaluating new drugs that will reduce a tumor's functionality while preserving its size. Finding more reliable and reproducible measures of tumor response is one of the most important and difficult challenges facing modern radiology as it requires an entirely new approach to imaging. The aim of this book is to address the assessment of response to treatment by adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, just as occurs in real life in a comprehensive cancer center. Oncologists and imaging experts consider two cancer models, locally advanced disease and metastatic disease, jointly exploring both conventional and advanced means of measuring response to standard treatment protocols and new targeted therapies.

In this book, oncologists and imaging experts together consider conventional and advanced means of measuring response to standard treatment protocols and new targeted therapies, using two cancer models: locally advanced disease and metastatic disease.

Medical imaging progressed to a standard undreamt of not very many years ago. The advances are due to continuous development of radiological techniques and the introduction of magnetic resonance imaging. With the improved and new methods three-dimensional target volumes for radiation therapy can be defined with hitherto unknown precision. This leads to an improvement in irradiation techniques and, as a consequence, to a higher likelihood of tumor control and a lower risk of normal tissue complications. Besides the improvement in irradiation techniques the new imaging methods may enable great strides in tumor response monitoring, not only in the detection of morphological alterations but also by showing physiological changes in the tumor during and after treatment by means of MRI and PET. This not only leads to better prognostic information but may also allow early evaluation of the response to treatment. It may then be possible to individualize the radiation dose but also the alternative-treatment for non-responders. This is certainly a future direction for radiation oncology.

A variety of cutting-edge imaging techniques, including their use for best practice, are addressed in this book. The book also provides examples of results found in both pre-clinical and clinical studies. This comprehensive text covers the entire spectrum of in vivo imaging for oncology. It will aide clinicians at all levels in keeping up with the most cutting-edge techniques.

This issue of MRI Clinics of North America focuses on Functional MRI in Oncology. Articles will include: Functional MRI techniques in oncology in the era of personalized medicine, MRI biomarkers and surrogate endpoints in oncology clinical trials, Therapy monitoring with functional MRI, Multiparametric MRI in the assessment of brain tumors, Multiparametric MRI of breast cancer, Functional MRI in chest malignancies, Multiparametric MRI in abdominal malignancies, Assessment of musculoskeletal malignancies with functional MRI, Evaluation of head and neck tumors with functional MRI, Role of multiparametric MRI in malignancies of the urogenital tract, Diffusion-weighted imaging in oncology, Functional MRI in gynecologic cancer, Assessment of angiogenesis with MRI: DCE-MRI and beyond, Imaging of tumor metabolism: MR spectroscopy, and more!

This pertinently illustrated and well referenced text serves as an up-to-date, attractive book of oncologic imaging for radiologists, oncologists, radiation therapists and others involved in oncologic care. This volume, with chapter contributions from world-renowned experts, provides clinical and research information that underpins accurate interpretation and sensible use of cancer imaging. The book also highlights new developments and advances in oncologic imaging.

This book provides, for the first time, a unified approach to the application of MRI in radiotherapy that incorporates both a physics and a clinical perspective. Readers will find detailed information and guidance on the role of MRI in all aspects of treatment, from dose planning, with or without CT, through to response assessment. Extensive coverage is devoted to the latest technological developments and emerging options. These include hybrid MRI treatment systems, such as MRI-Linac and proton-guided systems, which are ushering in an era of real-time MRI guidance. The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the use of MRI in the radiation treatment of cancer. The development of highly conformal dose delivery techniques has led to a growing need to harness advanced imaging for patient treatment. With its flexible soft tissue contrast and ability to acquire functional information, MRI offers advantages at all stages of treatment. In documenting the state of the art in the field, this book will be of value to a wide range of professionals. The authors are international experts drawn from the scientific committee of the 2017 MR in RT symposium and the faculty of the ESTRO teaching course on imaging for physicists.