PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Alessia Volpe
AU  - Prasad S Adusumilli
AU  - Heiko Schöder
AU  - Vladimir Ponomarev
TI  - Imaging cellular immunotherapies and immune cell biomarkers: from preclinical studies to patients
AID  - 10.1136/jitc-2022-004902
DP  - 2022 Sep 01
TA  - Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer
PG  - e004902
VI  - 10
IP  - 9
4099  - http://jitc.bmj.com/content/10/9/e004902.short
4100  - http://jitc.bmj.com/content/10/9/e004902.full
SO  - J Immunother Cancer2022 Sep 01; 10
AB  - Cellular immunotherapies have emerged as a successful therapeutic approach to fight a wide range of human diseases, including cancer. However, responses are limited to few patients and tumor types. An in-depth understanding of the complexity and dynamics of cellular immunotherapeutics, including what is behind their success and failure in a patient, the role of other immune cell types and molecular biomarkers in determining a response, is now paramount. As the cellular immunotherapy arsenal expands, whole-body non-invasive molecular imaging can shed a light on their in vivo fate and contribute to the reliable assessment of treatment outcome and prediction of therapeutic response. In this review, we outline the non-invasive strategies that can be tailored toward the molecular imaging of cellular immunotherapies and immune-related components, with a focus on those that have been extensively tested preclinically and are currently under clinical development or have already entered the clinical trial phase. We also provide a critical appraisal on the current role and consolidation of molecular imaging into clinical practice.