Pharmacodynamics of Radiolabelled Anticancer Drugs for Positron Emission Tomography

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) offers an exciting opportunity to monitor key pathways involved in malignant transformation due to the ability to radiolabel and image the behaviour of biological probes. In this review, we will describe how PET can use various radiolabelled compounds to monitor various targets including ligand-receptor interactions using 16α-[18F]fluoro-17β-oestradiol (FES) pathways involved in metabolism with [18F]fluorodeoxy-glucose ([18F]FDG), 11C-methyl-choline for signal transduction, cell cycle and proliferation with 2-[11C]thymidine, cell death using [124I]annexin V, [11C]colchicine for drug resistance and angiogenesis using [124I]anti-VEGF.