The current issue of the TCRT on Multi-modality Imaging attempts to show what is in the pipeline for true multi-modality imaging for simultaneous and co-registered images. One should keep in mind that such multi-modality devices require new reconstruction techniques, new hardware compatible with each other, and also multi-functional contrast agents to exploit all the advantages of multi-modality imaging systems for molecular imaging.

The first article by Uzgiris et al. presents preliminary work on a bi-functional agent using a NIR compound for optical imaging that is conjugated with an MR agent for MRI. The next article by Chu et al. describes a new algorithm that uses high-resolution information obtained with MRI to improve the spatial resolution in PET. This and similar future algorithms should further improve the spatial resolution in images obtained with systems that combine MRI with PET such as the one described by Lucas et al. in their paper. The paper by Kinahan et al. shows how one can use information obtained by CT for performing attenuation correction in PET images for better quantification using a PET-CT system. The article by Seo et al. demonstrates the use of a SPECT-CT system for improved quantification of ¹¹¹In-Capromab pentide in prostate cancer. Lucas et al.?s paper describes a novel PET-MRI system using a custom built magnet that should enable them for true PET-MR multi-modality imaging. While the current work is on a small animal system, expanding of such system for human imaging is expected in the near future. Wagenaar et al. discuss the prospects for combined nuclear and MRI for preclinical imaging. The work presented by Lucas et al. in the previous paper is an example of how such prospects are being realized already. The next two papers by Gulsen et al. and Zhu et al. demonstrate the use of a priori information to improve optical imaging, which is inherently of low spatial resolution. Gulsen?s paper shows how diffuse optical tomography (DOT) could benefit from a priori information obtained by simultaneously obtained MRI. The paper by Zhu et al. uses ultrasound for improving spatial specificity in optical imaging. Muftuler et al. demonstrate how electrical impedance tomography (EIT) of tissues could be obtained in an MR scanner by combined MR-EIT. Srinivasan?s paper shows how source localization in EEG and MEG could be improved using constraints obtained from MRI. Finally, Su et al. show how MRI and MRS could be used in the study of breast cancer by combining information from both modalities.

We hope that in this limited space we were able to give you a flavor of multi-modality imaging and its potential applications in oncology. Obviously, some of these technologies are equally applicable in the study of other types of diseases by appropriate redesign when possible. The developments in medical imaging since the development of the first CT scanner have been very rapid and exciting, and there is every reason to believe the field will move forward more rapidly in the near future with the advent of better computing power and the unlimited imagination of researchers in the field.

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