At the interface of diagnosis and therapy, theranostic imaging is showing real promise in the rapidly expanding field of precision medicine. As we know, when administering cancer therapy, it is critical to minimize damage to normal tissue. Molecular imaging provides this crucial support by identifying disease-specific targets, contributing to the design of agents against these targets, visualizing their delivery, and monitoring their therapeutic effect. And now that genomic and proteomic profiling can provide an extensive “fingerprint” of each tumor, it is possible to design personalized cancer theranostics which minimize damage to normal tissue. The importance of these advances must not be underestimated; the effective application of theranostic agents may achieve the goal that has remained elusive for so many malignancies – a cure for cancer.

So, let’s look at how we can define a theranostic. It is the integration of a diagnostic and therapeutic agent to deliver a highly-targeted treatment.