Tumour imaging with radiolabelled monoclonal antibodies.

The specificity of nuclear medicine techniques for imaging cancer is improved by characterization of the cancer cell as different from the normal. Radioimmunoscintigraphy, imaging with radiolabelled antibodies and radioimmunotherapy, using beta emitting radionuclides, are developing to give specific cancer identification and treatment. The new approaches include genetic engineering of humanized antibody constructs for imaging and bifunctional antibody like molecules for a two stage approach to radioimmunotherapy. There is an important clinical role for current radioimmunoscintigraphy with 99Tcm Technetium as the signal.