Molecular Imaging of Hypoxia: Strategies for Probe Design and Application

Tumor hypoxia is a negative prognostic factor and its precise imaging is of great relevance to therapy planning. The present review summarizes various strategies of probe design for imaging hypoxia with a variety of techniques such as PET, SPECT and fluorescence imaging. Synthesis of some important probes that are used for preclinical and clinical imaging and their mechanism of binding in hypoxia are also discussed. Keywords: Hypoxia, Cancer, Molecular Imaging, Radiosynthesis, Fluorination, Fluorine-18, Copper-64, HIF-1, Carbonic Anhydrase IX, Positron Emission Tomography, Fluorescence, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography