Advances of molecular imaging in tumor angiogenesis

Tumor angiogenesis has a close relationship with tumor growth, progression, metastasis and the prognosis of tumor patients. Therefore, tumor anti-angiogenic treatment arouses great public interest. Molecular imaging can characteristically display and measure the biochemical process of organisms at cellular and molecular level in vivo, which is based on the specific binding of molecular probe with high affinity and target molecules. In recent years, molecular imaging has a certain progress on visual and quantitative research of tumor angiogenesis and it is expected to become an important technique in the efficacy evaluation and prognostic assessment. This article summarizes the new advances of molecular imaging technology in tumor angiogenesis.