The rapidly evolving field of cancer immunotherapy recently saw the approval of several new therapeutic antibodies. Several cell therapies, for example, chimeric antigen receptor-expressing T cells (CAR-T), are currently in clinical trials for a variety of cancers and other diseases. However, approaches to monitor changes in the immune status of tumors or to predict therapeutic responses are limited. Monitoring lymphocytes from whole blood or biopsies does not provide dynamic and spatial information about T cells in heterogeneous tumors. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging using probes specific for T cells can noninvasively monitor systemic and intratumoral immune alterations during experimental therapies and may have an important and expanding value in the clinic.

癌症免疫治疗领域的飞速发展最近已批准了几种新的治疗性抗体。几种细胞疗法，例如表达嵌合抗原受体的T细胞（CAR-T），目前正在针对多种癌症和其他疾病的临床试验中。但是，监测肿瘤免疫状态变化或预测治疗反应的方法是有限的。从全血或活组织检查中监测淋巴细胞不能提供有关异质性肿瘤中T细胞的动态和空间信息。使用特异于T细胞的探针进行的正电子发射断层扫描（PET）成像可以无创地监测实验治疗期间的全身和肿瘤内免疫变化，并且在临床中可能具有重要且不断扩大的价值。