Imaging genomics in cancer research: limitations and promises

Recently, radiogenomics or imaging genomics has emerged as a novel high-throughput method of associating imaging features with genomic data. Radiogenomics has the potential to provide comprehensive intratumour, intertumour and peritumour information non-invasively. This review article summarizes the current state of radiogenomic research in tumour characterization, discusses some of its limitations and promises and projects its future directions. Semi-radiogenomic studies that relate specific gene expressions to imaging features will also be briefly reviewed.