Multimodality molecular imaging of the lung.

The continued progression of chronic lung disease despite current treatment options has led to the increasing evaluation of molecular imaging tools for diagnosis, treatment planning, drug discovery, and therapy monitoring. Concurrently the development of multimodality positron emission tomography (PET) / computed tomography (CT), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/CT, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)/PET scanners has opened the potential for more sophisticated imaging biomarker probes. Here we review the potential uses of multimodality imaging tools, the established uses of molecular imaging in nononcologic lung pathophysiology and drug discovery, and some of the technical challenges in multimodality molecular imaging of the lung.