ABSTRACT
Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was not only one of the first cancer markers monitored in patient sera for disease management, as recommended by an NIH Consensus Development Conference in 1980 (Goldenberg et al., 1981b), but it also served as the first characterized tumor-associated antigen to be a cellular target for radiolabeled antibodies (Primus et al., 1973; Goldenberg et al., 1974). This ushered in the field of antibody-based tumor imaging, or radioimmunodetection (Goldenberg et al., 1978). Even more significant is the realization that the general view at the time of the first clinical studies of radioimmunodetection (RAID) using CEA antibodies was that CEA circulating in the blood would complex with the injected anti-CEA antibodies and thereby prevent tumor localization (Reif et al., 1974; Mach et al., 1978). By contradicting this dogma with successful clinical tumor-targeting results (Goldenberg et al., 1978), the stage was set for many tumor markers that are secreted, such as α-fetoprotein (Goldenberg et al., 1980b; Kim et al., 1980), human chorionic gonadotropin (Goldenberg et al., 1980e; Javadpour et al., 1981), and prostatic acid phosphatase (Goldenberg et al., 1983a; Goldenberg and DeLand, 1984), becoming suitable targets for localizing antibodies. The purpose of this chapter is to review the evolution of cancer imaging and therapy with radiolabeled antibodies, including the problems and prospects of these new modalities. The reader is referred to earlier reviews of this subject (Goldenberg et al., 1989; Larson, 1990; Goldenberg, Blumenthal and Sharkey, 1990; Britton et al., 1989; Goldenberg and Larson, 1992; Goldenberg, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995a,b,). It is already appreciated that what is known for CEA antibodies in detection and therapy is relevant and applicable to other antibody systems and their respective tumor types (Goldenberg, 1990, 1994, 1995 a, b).
