New trends in molecular imaging of tumor angiogenesis

Tumor development leading to cancer is a complex process involving several steps. Among them, angiogenesis, ie growth of new tumor induced blood vessels is one of the most important therapeutic targets in the search for anticancer agents. One point which remain to be addressed is the detection of tumor angiogenic areas, ie tumor angiogenesis imaging. After presenting the key points of tumor development which lead to neoangiogenesis, and providing an overview of the main therapeutic approaches in this field, this review focusses on the recent progress in angiogenesis imaging, namely the one dealing with matrix metalloproteases. These enzymes are indeed present to major phenomena of the tumor progression. The different imaging approaches are described, namely the ones using optical, radiochemical or magnetic resonance ones.