Evolution of Radiological Treatment Response Assessments for Cancer Immunotherapy: From iRECIST to Radiomics and Artificial Intelligence
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Medical Science, Asan Medical Institute of Convergence Science and Technology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
- 2Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiology, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
Abstract
- Immunotherapy has revolutionized and opened a new paradigm for cancer treatment. In the era of immunotherapy and molecular targeted therapy, precision medicine has gained emphasis, and an early response assessment is a key element of this approach. Treatment response assessment for immunotherapy is challenging for radiologists because of the rapid development of immunotherapeutic agents, from immune checkpoint inhibitors to chimeric antigen receptor-T cells, with which many radiologists may not be familiar, and the atypical responses to therapy, such as pseudoprogression and hyperprogression.
Therefore, new response assessment methods such as immune response assessment, functional/molecular imaging biomarkers, and artificial intelligence (including radiomics and machine learning approaches) have been developed and investigated.
Radiologists should be aware of recent trends in immunotherapy development and new response assessment methods.