Proliferation imaging to measure early cancer response to targeted therapy.

Positron emission tomography imaging using thymidine and analogues labeled with positron emitters provides noninvasive and quantitative estimates of regional cellular proliferation. This CCR Translations summary reviews the biological basis for proliferation imaging and discusses recent results using 18F-fluorothymidine-positron emission tomography to measure response to targeted therapy in the context of prior studies and potential future applications.