REVIEWS  RADIOIMMUNOTHERAPY
Guest Editor: S. J. Mather 

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2004 December;48(4):289-96

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Radioimmunotherapy with α-particle emitting radionuclides

Zalutsky M. R., Pozzi O. R.

Department of Radiology Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

An impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion in the devel­op­ment of effec­tive strat­e­gies for radio­im­mu­no­ther­a­py is the ­nature of the radi­a­tion emit­ted by the radio­nu­clide. Radionuclides decay­ing by the emis­sion of α-par­ti­cles ­offer the pos­sibil­ity of match­ing the ­cell spe­cif­ic reac­tiv­ity of mono­clo­nal anti­bod­ies ­with radi­a­tion ­with a ­range of ­only a few ­cell diam­e­ters. Furthermore, α-par­ti­cles ­have impor­tant bio­log­i­cal advan­tag­es com­pared ­with exter­nal ­beam radi­a­tion and β-par­ti­cles includ­ing a high­er bio­log­i­cal effec­tive­ness, ­which is near­ly inde­pen­dent of oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tion, ­dose ­rate and ­cell ­cycle posi­tion. In ­this ­review, the clin­i­cal set­tings ­most like­ly to ben­e­fit ­from α-par­ti­cle radio­im­mu­no­ther­a­py ­will be dis­cussed. The cur­rent stat­us of pre­clin­i­cal and clin­i­cal ­research ­with anti­bod­ies ­labeled ­with 3 prom­is­ing α-par­ti­cle emit­ting radio­nu­clides—213Bi, 225Ac, and 211At—­also ­will be sum­mar­ized.