ROLE OF RADIOIMMUNOLOCALIZATION IN THE STAGING OF GASTRIC-CARCINOMA

Intraoperative radioimmunolocalization is a potentially useful techniq ue for staging gastric neoplasms without resorting to extensive surgic al intervention. Before preoperative immunohistochemical typing for th e presence or absence of tumor-associated glycoprotein (TAG) 72, we pe rformed intraoperative radioimmunodetection on three patients presenti ng with gastric carcinoma using a whole monoclonal antibody (B72.3) ma rked with Indium-lll injected 1 week before operation. The results wer e calculated on the number of lymph node stations and yielded a high s ensitivity due to a specificity of 72% and the absence of false negati ves. Intraoperative radioimmunolocalization is a promising method for noninvasive staging of both early and advanced gastric carcinoma. Semi n. Surg. Oncol. 15:209-211, 1998. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.