Diagnostic Imaging and Pathology in Cancer Research

Dear Colleagues,

The identifications of new diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive patient-specific biomarkers is one of the main objectives of cancer research. Against this backdrop, it has become clear that the development of personalized therapeutic protocols requires synergistic, transdisciplinary competencies. Currently, novel approved therapies rarely consider both the interindividual variability and the aptitude of cancer cells to undergo those genetic and molecular adaptation involved in the drug resistance phenomenon. In spite of recent and promising biomedical and biomarker discoveries, individually tailored medical care is still far from a reality, and molecules which are output by preclinical trials are very rarely translatable to evaluation for the diagnostic or therapeutical potential. The discrepancy between experimental data on new anticancer molecules and the opportunity to actually employ them in both diagnosis and therapy is due to multiple factors such as biological differences between human diseases and animal models, inconsistence of experimental plans, and/or incorrect interpretation of experimental results. In view of the above, it appears evident that working toward personalized medicine in oncology requires the synergic combination of several disciplines, such as nuclear medicine and anatomic pathology, which represent two complementary approaches to the diagnosis, prognosis, and evaluation of therapeutic response. Starting from these considerations, the focus of this Special Issue is publishing the latest discoveries and bringing together researchers and clinicians involved in both basic and translational cancer research in which diagnostic imaging (i.e., nuclear medicine and radiology) and pathology (i.e., classical and molecular pathology) disciplines work together to discover new diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers. Topics will include (but are not limited to):

• Identification of new imaging biomarkers;
• Identification of new in situ and molecular biomarkers;
• In vitro and in vivo models;
• Molecular targets for anticancer therapy;
• New therapeutic and theragnostic perspectives;

Dr. Manuel Scimeca
Dr. Nicola Fusco
Dr. Rita Bonfiglio
Prof. Dr. Alessandro Mauriello
Topic Editors