Imaging angiogenesis

Angiogenesis is a hallmark of cancer cells and offers major opportunities for the development of novel therapeutic interventions. Despite this, current antiangiogenic therapies offer only modest improvements in outcome in a limited number of clinical applications. The development of novel antiangiogenic therapies relies increasingly on the development of small molecules with specific targets in the angiogenic pathway and their combination into multi-agent therapies. Effective development is increasingly dependent on the provision of reliable, reproducible and appropriate biomarkers. Imaging biomarkers have played a major role in the development and validation of antiangiogenic therapies. However, the introduction of novel therapies increasingly requires an expansion in the current imaging biomarker library. This article discusses the applications of widely used imaging biomarkers such as those derived from dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI and provides an overview of novel molecular imaging techniques which are likely to become increasingly widely utilised.