Non-invasive biomarkers for monitoring the immunotherapeutic response to cancer

Abstract

Immunotherapy is an efficient way to cure cancer by modulating the patient's immune response. However, the immunotherapy response is heterogeneous and varies between individual patients and cancer subtypes, reinforcing the need for early benefit predictors. Evaluating the infiltration of immune cells in the tumor and changes in cell-intrinsic tumor characteristics provide potential response markers to treatment. However, this approach requires invasive sampling and may not be suitable for real-time monitoring of treatment response. The recent emergence of quantitative imaging biomarkers provides promising opportunities. In vivo imaging technologies that interrogate T cell responses, metabolic activities, and immune microenvironment could offer a powerful tool to monitor the cancer response to immunotherapy. Advances in imaging techniques to identify tumors' immunological characteristics can help stratify patients who are more likely to respond to immunotherapy. This review discusses the metabolic events that occur during T cell activation and differentiation, anti-cancer immunotherapy-induced T cell responses, focusing on non-invasive imaging techniques to monitor T cell metabolism in the search for novel biomarkers of response to cancer immunotherapy.