Immunotherapy Assessment: A New Paradigm for Radiologists

Abstract

Immunotherapy denotes an exemplar change in an oncological setting. Despite the effective application of these treatments across a broad range of tumors, only a minority of patients have beneficial effects. The efficacy of immunotherapy is affected by several factors, including human immunity, which is strongly correlated to genetic features, such as intra-tumor heterogeneity. Classic imaging assessment, based on computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is useful for conventional treatments, has a limited role in immunotherapy. The reason is due to different patterns of response and/or progression during this kind of treatment which differs from those seen during other treatments, such as the possibility to assess the wide spectrum of immunotherapy-correlated toxic effects (ir-AEs) as soon as possible. In addition, considering the unusual response patterns, the limits of conventional response criteria and the necessity of using related immune-response criteria are clear. Radiomics analysis is a recent field of great interest in a radiological setting and recently it has grown the idea that we could identify patients who will be fit for this treatment or who will develop ir-AEs.