Radiolabelled cytokines for imaging chronic inflammation

Diagnosis and particularly follow-up of chronic inflammatory disorders could be often difficult in clinical practice. Indeed, traditional radiological techniques reveal only structural tissue alterations and are not able to monitor functional changes occurring in tissues affected by chronic inflammation. The continuous advances in the knowledge of the pathophysiology of chronic disorders, combine with the progress of radiochemistry, led to the development of new specific radiolabelled agents for the imaging of chronic diseases. In this scenario, cytokines, due to their pivotal role in such diseases, represent good candidate as radiopharmaceuticals. (author)