Radio-immunoscintigraphy and intraoperative tumour detection by means of anti-tumour antibodies in patients with ovarian cancer.

ABSTRACT

A hand-held gamma-ray detection probe was developed by us to circumvent the problems of conventional radio-immunoscintigraphy (RIS). The intraoperative use of this probe in terms of radionuclide-assisted surgery (RAS) should help to overcome problems associated with insufficient accumulation by the tumour of the radio-active antibodies, unfavourable localization of tumour sites, collimation problems, etc., in patients with ovarian cancer. The probe was designed as a scintillation counter. Twelve patients were operated upon and investigated by RAS. It could be shown that RAS is able to detect tumour tissue intraoperatively, although we have already seen that improvements in the probe are necessary to make the method of real clinical value.