Overview of functional MR, CT, and US imaging techniques in clinical use

Functional and molecular imaging have potential to improve the diagnostic performance of conventional morphological imaging, by providing insights into the tumor cellularity, vascular function, metabolism, and molecular biology. In this chapter, we describe the leading functional imaging strategies, i.e., vascular imaging methods, which include the dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI, perfusion CT, and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography, as well as methods that probe tumor cellularity and metabolism, i.e., diffusion-weighted MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy, respectively. We address their technical aspects, including the data acquisition and analysis, and outline their possible applications in clinical practice.