Imaging Modalities for Diagnosis and
Imaging Response to Therapy
Day 1
Day 4
B
Mammogram MRI
DC-MRI
A
FDG-PET
C
FDG-PET
CT
Figure 10: Imaging Cancer. Imaging is an increasingly essential part of modern cancer care
from routine screening and prevention to informing diagnoses, and more recently to monitor
response to therapy both in the clinic and during drug discovery. Not all imaging, however,
provides the same quantity or type of information. For example, routine mammography
(A, mammogram) detected no cancer, while MRI detected a tumor in the same breast
(A, MRI) 20. Likewise, FDG-PET analysis reveals a bone metastasis (D, FDG-PET), whereas a
C T scan detected nothing (D, CT) and MRI analysis is unclear (D, MRI) 21. New types of imaging
like FDG-PET are able to detect metastases (B, day 1) and show the patient’s response to
therapy (B, day 4) 22. Increasingly, different types of imaging are being combined to provide
the most complete information possible; the use of DC-MRI and FDG-PET (C) reveals the
precise location and size of the tumor23.
MRI
D
