In the Wake of European Winds and Head and Neck Radioisotope Imaging

The first reported imaging studies with radio-labelled antibodies of head and neck cancer patients were published at the halfway of 1980s. Started with polyclonal anti-CEA antibody, the anti-CEA monoclonal antibody was followed shortly thereafter in the radioimmunoscintigraphy imaging of head and neck tumor patients. Despite a promising platform, the pilot-antibody studies in the latter part of the last millennium have in the end, not yielded a clear advantage or benefit to support clinical decisionmaking by RIS imaging method in head and neck tumors, neither in terms of diagnostic imaging nor in terms of treatments. The investigated antibodies have not been shown to be sufficiently selective in identifying head and neck tumors.