Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Br J Radiol. 2012 Jun;85(1014):697-708. doi: 10.1259/bjr/81120511. Epub 2012 Apr 11.
A better understanding of tumour biology has led to the development of "targeted therapies", in which a drug is designed to disrupt a specific biochemical pathway important for tumour cell survival or proliferation. The introduction of these drugs into the clinic has shown that patients can vary widely in their responses. Molecular imaging is likely to play an increasingly important role in predicting and detecting these responses and thus in guiding treatment in individual patients: so-called "personalised medicine". The aim of this review is to discuss how hyperpolarised (13)C MR spectroscopic imaging might be used for treatment response monitoring. This technique, which increases the sensitivity of detection of injected (13)C-labelled molecules by >10,000-fold, has allowed a new approach to metabolic imaging. The basic principles of the technique and its potential advantages over other imaging methods for detecting early evidence of treatment response will be discussed. Given that the technique is poised to translate to the clinic, I will also speculate on its likely applications.
对肿瘤生物学的更深入了解导致了“靶向治疗”的发展，其中药物旨在破坏对肿瘤细胞存活或增殖很重要的特定生化途径。这些药物在临床上的应用表明，患者的反应可能有很大差异。分子成像很可能在预测和检测这些反应以及指导个体患者的治疗方面发挥越来越重要的作用：即所谓的“个性化医疗”。本文的目的是讨论如何使用超极化（13）C 磁共振波谱成像来监测治疗反应。该技术将注射的（13）C 标记分子的检测灵敏度提高了 10000 多倍，为代谢成像提供了一种新方法。本文将讨论该技术的基本原理及其相对于其他成像方法在检测早期治疗反应方面的潜在优势。鉴于该技术即将应用于临床，我还将对其可能的应用进行推测。
