Radioimmunoscintigraphy using monoclonal antibodies before second-look surgery in patients suffering from ovarian cancer.

19 patients with a known history of ovarian cancer were investigated by radioimmunoscintigraphy (RIS) to look for recurrent disease a few days before second-look surgery. The tumor-associated monoclonal antibody HMFG-2 (400 micrograms/patient) was injected intravenously after labeling with radioactive 123I (0.5-2.2 mCi/patient). Scans were reviewed for activity accumulations due to uptake of the tumor-associated antibody by tumor sites. In 15 out of the 19 cases the scan results correlated with the intraoperative findings. There were 2 false-positive and 2 false-negative scans, the latter in patients with subclinical disease. The smallest lesion detected by radioimmunoscintigraphy had a diameter of 1.5 cm. In 3 patients, tumor sites were identified that had been missed by all other routinely performed methods of investigation including transmission computed tomography. These data indicate that RIS is of considerable clinical value in the early detection and localization of recurrent ovarian cancer and may, therefore, improve the management of these patients.