ABSTRACT
Assessment of treatment response is an important clinical and research task in cancer medicine. še goal of treatment response assessment is to categorize the e—cacy or toxicity of a treatment for an individual patient or patient cohort. For cancer treatment e—cacy, response is typically assessed by evaluating changes in the patient’s tumor burden before and a£er treatment. Tumor burden is an estimate of the amount of tumor in a patient’s body at a particular time point and can be described qualitatively or quantitatively. Tumor burden is o£en estimated with imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), CT, and PET, blood tests such as prostate-speciœc antigen and carcinoembryonic antigen, or by physical exam. Serial imaging studies are used to assess changes in the location, size, and metabolic activity of tumors over time. šis chapter describes the general approach to assessing tumor treatment response, formal cancer response criteria, requirements for the future development of MRI-based response criteria, and information systems to support application and development of response criteria.
