Molecular imaging of macrophages offers promising noninvasive tools for diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy monitoring in cardiovascular diseases.
Molecular imaging exhibits remarkable potential in immune cell tracking and advancing personalized clinical management, providing not only diagnostic and prognostic information but also enabling treatment efficacy quantification and therapeutic optimization. Macrophages play an essential role in the pathogenesis and progression of various cardiovascular diseases. This review comprehensively examines the characteristics of diverse molecular imaging modalities and their applications in macrophage imaging, encompassing major cardiovascular conditions, including atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, and cardiac transplantation. We anticipate that advancements in novel noninvasive molecular imaging technologies for macrophages will ultimately facilitate clinical diagnosis, outcome prediction, treatment strategy formulation, and therapy response monitoring, thereby providing critical technical support for precision medicine practice.
Xu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.