CCE Lecture: Imaging Tumour Biology (Derdia Gallagher & Luigi Aloj)

This talk will explore the potential of new imaging technologies to improve patient outcomes by non-invasively revealing changes within tissue following the onset of disease, particularly MRI and PET. Imaging methods provide unique tools to assess biological changes in both health and disease, as well as across spatial scales and over time. New imaging tools can probe the biological basis of disease in new ways, ranging from traditional anatomy at very high resolution, through physiology and metabolism, to fundamental cell biology. Increasingly these imaging approaches are being used in conjunction with targeted molecular radiotherapy in the form of theranostics.

Combining conventional and novel imaging methods with other patient information, including data from the patient record as well as tissue and liquid biomarkers, can improve tumour phenotyping in an individual patient. Using this multimodal approach pathology can be characterised and stratified more accurately to determine the best treatment for each patient, and these new imaging methods can be used to assess successful response to therapy earlier. The potential of these new approaches will be explored, as well as the challenges that need to be overcome to translate them into routine patient care in the future. Imaging tools are already central for most important diagnostic decisions in the cancer pathway, and novel imaging has the potential to further improve precision medicine in oncology.

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