title: 99mTc-labeled antihuman epidermal growth factor receptor antibody in patients with tumors of epithelial origin: Part III. Clinical trials safety and diagnostic efficacy.
abstract: Monoclonal antibody (moAb) ior egf/r3 is an IgG2a that recognizes the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R). The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the 99mTc-labeled moAb ior egf/r3 for the detection of epithelial-derived tumors, their metastases and recurrences.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred forty-eight adult patients (51 women, 97 men; mean age 53 +/- 13 y) who were suspected of having cancer of epithelial origin were administered 3 mg/50 mCi (1.85 GBq) 99mTc-labeled moAb ior egf/r3 by intravenous bolus injection. Planar anterior and posterior images of the lesion sites and suspected metastases were acquired at 2, 4, 6 and 24 h after injection, and SPECT images were scanned at 5 h postinjection, using a 360 degrees circular orbit with 64 images. The backprojection method was used for image reconstruction with a Hamming-Hann filter.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Labeling efficiency was always greater than 98.5% +/- 2.1 %. No adverse reactions or side effects were observed. Results of the biopsy specimens showed that 85.1% (126/148) of the patients had tumors of epithelial origin, 14.2% (21/148) were negative and 0.7% (1/148) had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The sensitivity rate by organ was as follows: brain (8/8, 100%), digestive tract (10/11, 90.9%), head and neck (17/23, 73.9%), lung (52/62, 83.9%) and breast (16/18, 88.9%). Overall sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and positive and negative predictive values of the immunoscintigraphic imaging were 84.2% (106/126), 100.0% (22/22), 86.5% (128/148), 100% (106/106) and 52.4% (22/42), respectively. New metastases not identified previously by other diagnostic methods were detected in the 50% of the patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Immunoscintigraphy with 99mTc-labeled moAb ior egf/r3 could be a useful procedure for the diagnosis and follow-up of the patients with tumors of epithelial origin.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D066246:ErbB Receptors / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008875:Middle Aged; D009375:Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D016719:Radioimmunodetection; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012449:Safety; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013670:Sodium Pertechnetate Tc 99m; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon