Advances in cancer therapy with radiolabeled monoclonal antibodies.

UNLABELLED: Two radiolabeled antibody products for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma have been approved, thus indicating that cancer radioimmunotherapy (RAIT) has finally come of age as a new therapeutic modality, exemplifying the collaboration of multiple disciplines, including immunology, radiochemistry, radiation medicine, medical oncology, and nuclear medicine. Clinical trials are showing usefulness in other hematological neoplasms, but the treatment of solid tumors remains the major challenge, since the doses shown to be effective in hematological tumors are insufficient in the more common epithelial cancers. Nevertheless, use of RAIT in locoregional applications and in the treatment of minimal residual disease have shown promising RESULTS: There is also optimism that pretargeting procedures, including new molecular constructs and targets, will improve the delivery of radioactivity to tumors with less hematologic toxicity, and thus may become the next generation of RAIT.