ANTIBODY IMAGING IN THE EVALUATION OF CARDIOVASCULAR-DISEASES

Antimyosin antibody was originally developed for in vivo detection of acute myocardial infarction. However, its utility has expanded to incl ude diagnosis of various cardiovascular diseases in which myocyte necr osis constitutes an obligatory component of the disease. Thus antimyos in has also been used clinically for noninvasive diagnosis of acute my ocarditis, heart transplant rejection, drug-induced cardiotoxicity, an d other cardiomyopathies. This first-generation monoclonal antibody, a ntimyosin, has opened the way for the second-generation monoclonal ant ibodies such as antifibrin and antiplatelet for in vivo diagnostic use in the detection of deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism and antiatherosclerotic lesion-specific antibody for diagnosis of metabol ically active lesions. Whether the third generation of antibodies will include ultrasmall antigen-binding units or negative charge-modified antibodies must await future studies.