Otmar Schober, Burkhard Riemann (eds): Molecular Imaging in Oncology

Excerpt

Otmar Schober is one of the most authoritative European professionals in molecular imaging. He edited this book with Burkhard Riemann, also working at the University of Munster, in collaboration with many outstanding international experts. The authors describe molecular imaging as “a discipline at the intersection of molecular biology and in vivo imaging, defined as the visualization, characterization and quantification of biologic processes at the cellular and molecular level in living organisms”. In this sense, being dependent, at its best, on highly performing tools and accurate methodologies, molecular imaging, in the partially restrictive definition chosen by the authors, is at present generally applied in preclinical research. However, its use in humans is projected to substantially increase, with only a minority of possible applications already in clinical practice. The aim of the book is to describe all the most important applications of this new revolutionary approach in diagnosis and characterization of neoplasms, with the expectation that it will lead to ever more effective, early and tailored treatment. The process of molecular imaging includes the identification of target molecules, the design of specific probes and their preclinical in vivo evaluation in small animals. A high number of such innovative molecular imaging probes are already available in clinical oncology, having found substantial support as a result of the diffusion of multimodality imaging that combines morphological and functional imaging techniques, and in which molecular imaging could be an effective tool. …