Role of radioimmunolocalization in the staging of gastric carcinoma

Intraoperative radioimmunolocalization is a potentially useful technique for staging gastric neoplasms without resorting to extensive surgical intervention. Before preoperative immunohistochemical typing for the presence or absence of tumor‐associated glycoprotein (TAG) 72, we performed intraoperative radioimmunodetection on three patients presenting with gastric carcinoma using a whole monoclonal antibody (B72.3) marked with Indium‐111 injected 1 week before operation. The results were calculated on the number of lymph node stations and yielded a high sensitivity due to a specificity of 72% and the absence of false negatives. Intraoperative radioimmunolocalization is a promising method for noninvasive staging of both early and advanced gastric carcinoma. Semin. Surg. Oncol. 15:209–211, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.