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Imaging in oncology—over a century of advances

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 9, pages 728–737 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Over the past 120 years, the discipline of oncology has evolved so that a multitude of anatomical and increasingly complex functional imaging techniques are now applicable in both clinical and research platforms. This Timeline article revisits the achievements of the pioneer techniques in cancer imaging, discusses how these techniques have changed over time, provides some examples of clinical importance, and ventures to explain how imaging will remodel the future of modern oncology.

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Figure 1: Trends in CT doses in the UK over time.106,107
Figure 2: Evolution of clinical PET imaging.
Figure 3: Complexities of staging and response evaluation; functional imaging and quantification.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Hannah Holmes, The Royal Marsden, for secretarial support. We acknowledge National Health Service funding to the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre (London, UK).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Imaging, Royal Marsden Hospital, Fulham Road, London, SW3 6JJ, UK

    Bhuey Sharma

  2. Department of Medical Oncology, Royal Marsden Hospital, Fulham Road, London, SW3 6JJ, UK

    Susannah Stanway, Stephen R. D. Johnston & Anastasia Constantinidou

  3. Radiology Department, North-West London Hospitals NHS Trust, Watford Road, London, HA1 3UJ, UK

    Axel Martin

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B. Sharma, A. Martin and A. Constantinidou made substantial contributions to researching the data, discussion of content, and writing, reviewing and editing of the manuscript before submission. S. Stanway contributed to researching the data and writing the article. S. R. D. Johnston contributed to discussion of content.

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B. Sharma is an employee of Alliance Medical. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Sharma, B., Martin, A., Stanway, S. et al. Imaging in oncology—over a century of advances. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 9, 728–737 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2012.195

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