Experimental Studies of Radioimmunodetection of Cancer: an Overview

During the past 8 years numerous patients have been treated by injection of radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies for both diagnosis and treatment of cancer. It has become common to refer to this approach by such terms as "antibody guided delivery" or "antibody guided targeting." In general the results, while somewhat promising, have failed to fulfill our initial expectations. It is now clear that there are many physiological barriers that antibodies face in their travel toward their tumor associated antigen. The papers in the "Experimental Studies of Radioimmunodetection" section of the symposium describe in detail these barriers. We must remember that antibody conjugates are no more "guided" than classical drugs and hormones and are subject to the same physiological principals.