Monitoring the response of bone metastases to treatment using MRI and PET

Imaging technologies are crucial in evaluating a patient’s response to cancer treatment in daily oncology practice. This can be done quite effectively for most tumours using Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours (RECIST). However, RECIST criteria work well for tumours located in visceral organs or soft tissues (assessed by computed tomography), but not so well for bone metastases which are frequently present, especially in prostate and breast cancers. More effort, therefore, is needed to improve understanding of how to monitor the response of bone metastases to treatment using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), and a recent European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Imaging Group review and position statement published in the European Journal of Cancer is a decidedly welcome contribution. Read more here.