| The rapid discovery of novel therapeutic agents, targeting the specific mechanism of cancer progression, invasion and angiogenesis, necessitates the development and validation of efficient techniques to assess the therapeutic efficacy of these drugs in vivo. Recently the development of dedicated PET scanners for the imaging of small animals, such as the microPET system (CTI Concorde R4), has allowed for the high-resolution functional and molecular imaging of murine and rodent models of disease. This study, investigates the ability of microPET imaging, using the 18F labelled 2-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose (FDG) PET tracer, to detect the therapeutic efficacy of novel targeted therapies in a rat model of glioma. This technique potentially allows for the rapid and high-throughput assessment of tumour response and evaluation of efficacy of such therapeutic agents in vivo at the pre-clinical stage and will, consequently, facilitate the translation of these novel drugs from the discovery to the clinical phases. |
