Multimodality Imaging for Evaluating Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer.

OBJECTIVE

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is becoming the standard of care for patients with locally advanced breast cancer. Conventional imaging modalities used for the assessment of tumor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy rely on changes in size or morphologic characteristics and, therefore, are inherently limited.

CONCLUSION

Functional imaging technologies evaluate vascular, metabolic, biochemical, and molecular changes in cancer cells and have a unique ability to detect specific biologic tumor markers, assess therapeutic targets, predict early response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and guide individualized cancer therapy.