Experimental and clinical approachesto a radioimmunotherapy in oncology

Molecular nuclear medicine plays an important role in the diagnosis and therapy of cancer. Radioimmunodetection and radioimmunotherapy (RIT) involve the use of antibodies conjugated with diagnostic or therapeutic radionuclides, respectively. More often for RIT use the monoclonal antibodies against tumor-associated antigens, radiolabeled with alpha or beta-emitters. Encouraging results have been achieved with this technology in the management of hematologic malignancies. On the contrary, solid tumors have been less responsive. Radioimmunotherapy therefore is considered more suitable for the treatment of microscopic or minimal residual disease, allowing radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies to achieve uptake in tumors high enough to result in tumoricidal radiation doses. Despite these encouraging results, new potential target for radioimmunodetection and RIT should be found. For this purpose, a series of experiments will be performing to investigate the biodistribution and the therapeutic efficacy of radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies in cell culture and animal models.