Preclinical Molecular Imaging for Precision Medicine in Breast Cancer Mouse Models

Abstract

Precision and personalized medicine is gaining importance in modern clinical medicine, as it aims to improve diagnostic precision and to reduce consequent therapeutic failures. In this regard, prior to use in human trials, animal models can help evaluate novel imaging approaches and therapeutic strategies and can help discover new biomarkers. Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women worldwide, accounting for 25% of cases of all cancers and is responsible for approximately 500,000 deaths per year. Thus, it is important to identify accurate biomarkers for precise stratification of affected patients and for early detection of responsiveness to the selected therapeutic protocol. This review aims to summarize the latest advancements in preclinical molecular imaging in breast cancer mouse models. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging remains one of the most common preclinical techniques used to evaluate biomarker expression in vivo, whereas magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), particularly diffusion-weighted (DW) sequences, has been demonstrated as capable of distinguishing responders from nonresponders for both conventional and innovative chemo- and immune-therapies with high sensitivity and in a noninvasive manner. The ability to customize therapies is desirable, as this will enable early detection of diseases and tailoring of treatments to individual patient profiles. Animal models remain irreplaceable in the effort to understand the molecular mechanisms and patterns of oncologic diseases.

Intravital mesoscopic fluorescence molecular tomography allows non-invasive in vivo monitoring and quantification of breast cancer growth dynamics

“…To this end, preclinical mouse models can provide valuable resources for cancer prevention and treatment strategies, since they enable both longitudinal and molecular analyses of precancerous and cancerous lesions in defined genetic contexts and in environmentally controlled conditions, which would be impossible to accomplish by studying human cancer 7 , 8 . Preclinical breast cancer mouse models, such as transplantation based mouse models or genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs), have been successfully used to investigate tumor biology via a range of imaging approaches 9 and therapeutic strategies 10 . Moreover, GEMMs based on conditional gene targeting wherein genes of interest are inactivated (or activated) in a temporal and tissue-specific manner offer advanced tools to study cancer with the inclusion of reporter alleles to perform in vivo imaging 11 .…”

The Impact of Normalization Approaches to Automatically Detect Radiogenomic Phenotypes Characterizing Breast Cancer Receptors Status

“…Based on the molecular receptor status, breast cancer can be classified into different subtypes with different response to therapy and prognosis. The three clinically most-useful receptors status to characterize breast cancer cells are the estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) that can impact therapy and prognosis [2].…”

Functionalized nanoparticles with targeted antibody to enhance imaging of breast cancer in vivo

“…While the focus for this conjugate surrounds the concept of an early detection imaging agent, there are additional applications that this dual CT/MRI functionality could prove useful in for a clinical setting. For example, MRI prior to neo-adjuvant chemotherapy has been shown to clarify whether the treatment will increase the likelihood of pathologic complete response [ 40 – 42 ]. Additionally, a recent review describes the potential utilization of both MRI and CT techniques in order to image and diagnose breast cancer brain metastases; [ 37 ] this may be of particular interest for a HER-2 targeted imaging conjugate since HER-2 positive cancers are more aggressive [ 22 ].…”