ABSTRACT
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Cancer cells exhibit typical characteristics (outlined in Table 13.1), which, although individually
not dangerous, collectively make the disease life threatening and difficult to treat. Magnetic
resonance (MR) methods can be applied to study several of these characteristics and their response
to therapy, in the context of drug discovery and development. As a disease, cancer exhibits different
levels of malignancy, starting with low grade tumors which tend to resemble normal cells and grow
slowly, to high grade poorly differentiated or undifferentiated tumors, which do not resemble the
tissue of origin [1], and are aggressive and grow rapidly. One of the challenges facing MR methods
is to identify parameters, which closely reflect the grade or aggressiveness of tumors and the danger
they pose. The paradigm shift of viewing cancer as a chronic disease, and the development of
agents which control the tumor through therapies such as antiangiogenic drugs, differentiating
agents, or specific molecular targeting, has resulted in a concurrent and urgent requirement to detect
tumor response.
