Massimo Aglietta and Daniele Regge (Eds), Springer, Milan, 2012
The idea behind the book Imaging Tumor Response to Therapy, edited by Massimo Aglietta and Daniele Regge, is summarized in the words of Galileo Galilei chosen by the editors for the book’s epigraph: “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” These words from several centuries ago perfectly describe the shift from qualitative to quantitative imaging observed in oncology over the past decade. It was, in fact, in 2000 when a new set of rules to quantitatively define tumor response—RECIST, Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors—was first published. RECIST criteria have permitted and still permit good results in the case of patients treated with conventional chemotherapy, but they have become absolutely insufficient to address the questions arising from new targeted therapies. This is why the present book, the result of a collaboration between radiologists and oncologists who started with RECIST but went beyond, is a welcome contribution to the current imaging literature. The book describes what should be the correct, modern approach to image analysis today and, at the same time, explores and discusses new techniques and methods under research evaluation.