Cell therapies represent a rapidly emerging class of new therapeutics. They are intended and developed for the treatment of some of the most prevalent human diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and for regenerative medicine. Currently, they are largely developed without precise assessment of their in vivo distribution, efficacy, or survival either clinically or preclinically. However, it would be highly beneficial for both preclinical cell therapy development and subsequent clinical use to assess these parameters in situ to enable enhancements in efficacy, applicability, and safety. Molecular imaging can be exploited to track cells non-invasively on the whole-body level and can enable monitoring for prolonged periods in a manner compatible with rapidly expanding cell types. In this review, we explain how in vivo imaging can aid the development and clinical translation of cell-based therapeutics. We describe the underlying principles governing non-invasive in vivo long-term cell tracking in the preclinical and clinical settings, including available imaging technologies, reporter genes, and imaging agents as well as pitfalls related to experimental design. Our emphasis is on adoptively transferred T cell and stem cell therapies.

细胞疗法代表了一种新兴的新兴疗法。它们旨在和开发用于治疗一些最普遍的人类疾病，包括癌症，糖尿病和再生医学。目前，它们在很大程度上没有临床或临床前精确评估其体内分布，功效或存活率而开发。但是，这对于临床前细胞疗法的开发以及随后的临床使用对原位评估这些参数都将非常有益。以提高功效，适用性和安全性。可以利用分子成像技术在全身水平上无创地跟踪细胞，并且可以以与快速扩展的细胞类型兼容的方式进行长时间监控。在这篇综述中，我们解释了体内成像如何帮助基于细胞的疗法的发展和临床翻译。我们描述了在临床前和临床环境中控制无创体内长期细胞追踪的基本原理，包括可用的成像技术，报道基因和成像剂以及与实验设计有关的陷阱。我们的重点是过继转移的T细胞和干细胞疗法。