Minimal residual disease: a target for radioimmunotherapy with 131I-labeled monoclonal antibodies? Some dosimetric considerations.

Abstract

Tumor size is one of the decisive parameters for the efficacy of conventional radiation therapy. From experimental and clinical data this seems also to be true for systemic radiotherapy, such as radioiodine therapy in thyroid cancer (Malone 1975) or radioimmunotherapy (RIT) with labeled monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) (Thedrez et al. 1989; Chatal et al. 1989) In general, it may be stated that the smaller the tumor size, the greater the chance of controlling it. However, for a very small tumor, the contrary may be the case in systemic radiotherapy: due to the limited range of the radionuclides used, a considerable proportion of the energy may be deposited outside the tumor and tumoricidal doses may not be achieved. Thus, in the situation of minimal residual disease (MRD) the chance of cure may be lessened.KeywordsDose DistributionMinimal Residual DiseaseRadioiodine TherapySphere CenterTumor SphereThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.