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Review
. 2019 Dec;33(12):13085-13097.
doi: 10.1096/fj.201902024. Epub 2019 Oct 9.

Imaging inflammation and its resolution in health and disease: current status, clinical needs, challenges, and opportunities

Christina H Liu  1 , Natalie D Abrams  1 , Danielle M Carrick  1 , Preethi Chander  2 , Johanna Dwyer  3 , Michelle R J Hamlet  4 , Andrei L Kindzelski  5 , Mercy PrabhuDas  6 , Shang-Yi Anne Tsai  7 , Merriline M Vedamony  6 , Chiayeng Wang  2 , Pushpa Tandon  1
Affiliations
Review

Imaging inflammation and its resolution in health and disease: current status, clinical needs, challenges, and opportunities

Christina H Liu et al. FASEB J. 2019 Dec.

Abstract

Inflammation is a normal process in our body; acute inflammation acts to suppress infections and support wound healing. Chronic inflammation likely leads to a wide range of diseases, including cancer. Tools to locate and monitor inflammation are critical for developing effective interventions to arrest inflammation and promote its resolution. To identify current clinical needs, challenges, and opportunities in advancing imaging-based evaluations of inflammatory status in patients, the U.S. National Institutes of Health convened a workshop on imaging inflammation and its resolution in health and disease. Clinical speakers described their needs for image-based capabilities that could help determine the extent of inflammatory conditions in patients to guide treatment planning and undertake necessary interventions. The imaging speakers showcased the state-of-the-art in vivo imaging techniques for detecting inflammation in different disease areas. Many imaging capabilities developed for 1 organ or disease can be adapted for other diseases and organs, whereas some have promise for clinical utility within the next 5-10 yr. Several speakers demonstrated that multimodal imaging measurements integrated with serum-based measures could improve in robustness for clinical utility. All speakers agreed that multiple inflammatory measures should be acquired longitudinally to comprehend the dynamics of unresolved inflammation that leads to disease development. They also agreed that the best strategies for accelerating clinical translation of imaging inflammation capabilities are through integration between new imaging techniques and biofluid-based biomarkers of inflammation as well as already established imaging measurements.-Liu, C. H., Abrams, N. D., Carrick, D. M., Chander, P., Dwyer, J., Hamlet, M. R. J., Kindzelski, A. L., PrabhuDas, M., Tsai, S.-Y. A., Vedamony, M. M., Wang, C., Tandon, P. Imaging inflammation and its resolution in health and disease: current status, clinical needs, challenges, and opportunities.

Keywords: chronic inflammation; clinical translation; in vivo; inflammatory status; molecular imaging.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors thank the speakers (listed below) for participating in multiple preworkshop discussions and conference calls and for providing their insights on the clinical needs, current state-of-the-art imaging techniques, as well as challenges, opportunities, and recommendations associated with the image-based evaluation of inflammation and its resolution processes. The authors greatly appreciate their time and thoughtful input in reviewing the manuscript. Speakers: Charles Serhan (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA); Michael Postow and Kayvan R. Keshari (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA); James R. Hebert (University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA); Rohit Loomba (University of California–San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA); Fedor Lurie (Jobst Vascular Institute, Toledo, OH, USA); Ru-Rong Ji (Duke University, Durham, NC, USA); Victoria Chiou (U.S. FDA, Silver Spring MD, USA); Yaron Rotman and Ahmed Gharib, (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA); Stefan Uderhardt (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA); Xueding Wang (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA); Alexei Bogdanov (University of Massachusetts, Worcester, MA, USA); Irene Georgakoudi (Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA); Amy Leblanc (National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA); Stephanie Cush [Foundation for the NIH (FNIH), Bethesda, MD, USA]; Martin G. Pomper (Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, MD, USA); Laura Beretta (University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA); Zahi Fayad (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA); Eva M. Ratai (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA); Milind Y. Desai (Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA) Sandip Biswal (Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Clinical wishlist for in vivo imaging capabilities to assess inflammation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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