Radiolabelled peptides and monoclonal antibodies for therapy decision making in inflammatory diseases.

Radiolabelled peptides and monoclonal antibodies are an emerging class of radiopharmaceuticals for imaging inflammation with clinical implications for several chronic inflammatory disorders for diagnosis, therapy decision making and follow up. In the last decades, a number of novel monoclonal antibodies and peptides have been introduced for the treatment of different inflammatory disorders and also labelled with a variety of radionuclides depending upon the specific applications, diagnostic or therapeutic, by using direct or indirect methods. These radiopharmaceuticals bind to their targets with high affinity and specificity and therefore have an excellent diagnostic potential for the imaging of patients with chronic inflammatory diseases. In this review article we describe the characteristics of peptides, cytokines and monoclonal antibodies with a particular emphasis on their role in therapy decision making and follow up in different inflammatory diseases.