scope:

Preface

 In the healthcare system and in preclinical health research, the important goal for imaging is to detect and identify disease (if possible at an early stage) and monitor response to treatment. Increasingly, multiple imaging modalities are being used in combination to give the physician complementary information and a more complete insight into the disease. In preclinical research, the need for multi modality imaging may be important not only to detect disease, bob to understand is underlying mechanisms and the role these molecular mechanisms OS prtgression and severity.

Applications of small animal imaging and therapy are an important component of cumacine and deal with the development of new imaging and therapeutic approaches that need to be .rst tested and validated in animals before application to humans. Due to continuous progress in image acquisition and therapy technology, the reld of small animal imaging and therapy is rapidly changing and there are many books written every year to reed this evolution. Our goal in creating this book was to collate informa tion about various imaging and therapeutic techniques used in preclinical research into a single book. We hope this book will be a reference useful for established researchers already employing some of these techniques, and also accessible to those entering the eld for the :rst time.

e material in the book is grouped into eight sections. Section I deals with introductory material to small animal imaging, therapy, and research ethics. Section II is concerned with ionizing radiation, while Section III covers nonionizing radiation methods in small animal imaging. In Section IV, hybrid imaging is discussed, and in Section V, special focus is given to imaging agents. Section VI addresses therapeutic research platforms, and Section VII imaging quanti cation. Finally, Section VIII gives an overview of various small animal imaging and therapy applications to demonstrate the potential of the these techniques. We hope that this book will inspire readers with new ideas to integrate and exploit some of these technologies in their research.

e editors thank all of the authors for the outstanding contributions to this book, thank the pit lishing starfor their guidance and advice throughout the project, and acknowledge the COST Action TD1007: Bimodal PET-MRI molecular imaging technologies and applications for in vivo monitoring of disease and biological processes,iand the members of the Action, who have actively contributed several chapters. Finally, they express their gratitude to the artist, Mr. Nikolaos Kamabatidis, for preparing the front cover and end cover images of this book.