Imaging tools to enhance animal tumor models for cancer research and drug discovery

Abstract The goal of this chapter is to concisely introduce the most important noninvasive animal/preclinical imaging approaches that are used to image cancer models today. It is the scope of this chapter to discuss a subsection on models that are truly representative of the tumor microenvironment and highlight its applications, advantages, and translational challenges. Also, each modality’s salient advantages, considerations, and best applications will be discussed and demonstrated with examples from the literature. The altering nature of modeling cancer in mice will also be mentioned briefly, primarily through utilization of ectopic, orthotopic, patient-derived xenografts models with preclinical imaging which is well positioned to increase the use of these new, accurate, and resourceful modeling approaches.