EDITORIAL Improved Prospects for Cancer Therapy with Radiolabeled Antibody Fragments and Peptides?

The development and first clinical application of radiolabeled antibod ies against defined human tumor-associ ated antigens in the late 1970s and early 1980s (1-4) has now matured to a mul titude of agents that not only can reveal occult cancer sites, but also have appli cations in the detection of infection, in flammation, infarction, atherosclerotic plaques and thrombi (5,6). Such selective targeting of disease has stimulated the extension of these approaches to the ther apeutic modalities involving immuno-conjugates of antibodies linked to drugs, toxins, radionuclides and cytokines, i