Abstract
The recent clinical success of cancer immunotherapy has renewed interest in the development of tools to image the immune system. In general, immunotherapies attempt to enable the body’s own immune cells to seek out and destroy malignant disease. Molecular imaging of the cells and molecules which regulate immunity could provide unique insight into the mechanisms of action, and failure, of immunotherapies. In this review, we will collectively refer to the tools applied towards imaging the immune system as the immuno-imaging toolbox. The immuno-imaging toolbox is comprised of imaging hardware, software, and biological wetware which together enable dynamic and non-invasive visualization of immune response. Other recent reviews have focused on specific portions of the immuno-imaging toolbox, including advances in imaging hardware(1) and certain classes of imaging probes(2, 3). Here we will attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art immuno-imaging toolbox with a focus on imaging strategies and their applications towards immunotherapy.
- Copyright © 2018 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Inc.