Cancer biology: What's important for imaging

Cancer is known to be a mosaic of genetic alterations producing biological changes in cells. In addition, it has been mainly accepted that some common hallmarks could ease the oncologic process. Cancer cells show different characteristics from normal cells including rapid proliferation, immortality, resistance to apoptosis, altered metabolism, metastatic ability, and resistance to immunologic blitz. The main target of cancer imaging is often directed to differentiate between neoplastic and normal tissues. The development of new imaging technologies offering multiple and distinct, anatomical, functional, and metabolic information from a macroscopic to a molecular level opens an exciting journey. These imaging modalities, also called molecular imaging modalities, comprise CT, MRI, US, SPECT, PET, and optical imaging. Further, biomarkers in combination with imaging are aimed to exploit the advantages of these modalities. The ability to label distinct neoplastic characteristics with imaging agents can be used for diagnosis, assessing treatment response, and drug delivery.