Standard Imaging Techniques May Monitor Angiogenesis

Extract

Research has focused on developing technology useful in predicting and monitoring the response of cancerous tissues to antiangiogenesis agents, and the results have been mixed. But a handful of scientists are looking specifically at a small group of effective noninvasive methods that may be used to detect early changes in blood supply within Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions.

Tumor angiogenesis is among the early changes that differentiate normal tissues from cancerous tissues. More than 20 angiogenesis inhibitors are being tested in human trials (see related story, p. 1202).

“Angiogenesis is a critical pathway in the pathogenesis of Kaposi’s sarcoma, of other cancers, and other diseases,” Ellen Feigal, M.D., deputy director of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis at the National Cancer Institute, said at the Fourth Annual International AIDS Malignancy conference. Feigal chaired a roundtable discussion where several technologies for monitoring antiangiogenesis therapies were presented.

One way to monitor this development of blood vessels is with an infrared camera. “We sought to develop a method for rapid, noninvasive evaluation of the activity in KS lesions using images of such lesions obtained with a high-sensitivity infrared camera,” said Jerry R. Williams, Sc.D., of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. The technology sees through the skin to show the vascularity of the lesion. Williams and colleagues observed differences in infrared images in KS lesions in patients whose disease was active or inactive, and interpreted these images as showing elevated temperature in active lesions.