Apoptosis imaging: current state of the art and future perspective

This review provides a critical and thorough overview of the radionpharmaceutical development and in vivo evaluation of all apoptosis-detecting radioligands that emerged so far, along with these possible applications in nuclear medcine. Radiolabelled annexin bears the promise of becoming a clinically applied radio-pharmaceutical with potential applications in cardiology and oncology. Visualization of cell death is important in pathologies such as myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, and cancer. Furthermore, radiolabelled annexin may be developed as a tool for monitoring cell death-induceing or cell death-preventing therapies. Some futue perspective are presented with the aim of promoting the development of potential new strategies in pursuit of the idealcell death-detecting radioligand.