ABSTRACT
Imaging plays an integral and diverse role in oncology, including in diagnosis, staging, planning treatment, surveillance, assessing response to treatment and its complications and identifying recurrent disease. It also helps to target therapies such as radiofrequency/thermal/cryotherapy ablation and embolization of tumours. It plays a vital part in monitoring response to treatment, often acting as a surrogate endpoint for drug trials. Recent advances in functional and molecular imaging have widened the scope and application of imaging by combining the exquisite anatomical detail provided by cross-sectional imaging with information concerning tissue and cellular activity obtained by scintigraphy and molecular imaging. The role of imaging is specific to each cancer type and site. Radiologists with a special interest in imaging patients with cancer need to develop a detailed knowledge of its natural history and response to treatment while keeping abreast of new developments in imaging. For all these reasons, imaging now has a central role in the practice of multidisciplinary teams caring for cancer patients. This chapter provides a brief description of basic principles and recent advances in commonly used imaging modalities. It discusses the optimal use of imaging as applicable to individual cancer types, with particular emphasis on detection (including screening and characterization), staging, planning and monitoring treatment and identifying recurrent disease.
