IMAGING BIOMARKERS IN DISEASE DIAGNOSIS AND MONITORING

Imaging biomarkers have become indispensable tools in modern medicine, providing noninvasive, quantitative, and reproducible measures of biological processes that underpin disease onset, progression, and response to therapy.Across oncology, neurology, cardiovascular medicine, and inflammatory disorders, imaging biomarkers enable earlier diagnosis, refined risk stratification, treatment selection, and longitudinal disease monitoring.Advances in imaging technologies, including magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, ultrasound, and hybrid multimodal platforms, have expanded the scope of measurable biomarkers from structural abnormalities to functional, metabolic, and molecular signatures of disease.This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of current evidence on imaging biomarkers in disease diagnosis and monitoring, with emphasis on their biological basis, technical development, clinical validation, and real-world implementation.We discuss disease-specific applications, including cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular disease, and chronic inflammatory conditions, highlighting how imaging biomarkers inform clinical decision-making and therapeutic assessment.The review also examines key challenges, including standardization, reproducibility, regulatory qualification, data integration, and equity of access.Finally, we explore emerging directions such as radiomics, artificial intelligence-driven imaging analysis, and multimodal biomarker integration, which promise to further transform precision medicine.Imaging biomarkers are positioned not merely as diagnostic adjuncts but as Jerry Adesola Adeyemo