Monitoring of anti-angiogenic therapy by quantitative ultrasound molecular imaging

Cancer growth and development requires angiogenesis, i.e., the formation of a blood supply to feed the tumor and enable metastatic spreading [1]. In cancer angiogenesis, pro-angiogenic factors are secreted to trigger the growth of new blood vessels and the recruitment of pre-existing vessels from surrounding tissue. The resulting vasculature is characterized by a chaotic network of abnormal micro-vessels exhibiting increased tortuosity and permeability, irregular diameters and branching, and arterio-venous shunting. This has led to a shift both in cancer diagnostics, whereby several in-vivo non-invasive imaging methods have been developed to assess the structural, functional, and molecular changes occurring due to cancer angiogenesis [2], and in cancer therapeutics, with the development of novel drugs aimed at inhibiting angiogenic processes and/or disrupting angiogenic tumor vasculature [3]