A study introduced at SNM’s 58th Annual Meeting may lead to the next wave of cancer imaging by helping to develop a molecular imaging agent that detects many malignant cancers’ incessant development of blood vessels -- a process called angiogenesis. A protein biomarker known as CD105 has been shown to indicate tumor angiogenesis in cancer patients. “Non-invasive molecular imaging is a critical component of 21st century personalized medicine, and one of the hallmarks of cancer is angiogenesis,” says Weibo Cai, PhD, assistant professor of radiology, medical physics and biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health. “CD105 is considered by many to be the best biomarker for evaluating tumor angiogenesis. Non-invasive imaging of this protein’s expression could potentially play a variety of roles in the future of cancer patient management. CD105-targeted imaging agents also represent a new paradigm for the assessment of cancer therapies that target tumor angiogenesis. Applications for this agent could reach far beyond cancer and open many new avenues for future research.”
