Antibody-based immunological therapies

Clinical research in the area of antibody-based tumor-targeted therapy has been driven for many years by the prospect of identifying cell surface antigens with sufficient restrictive tissue expression patterns to allow for the selective and specific accumulation of antibody in tumor tissue. Few, if any, such antibody—antigen systems have been identified which can effectively deliver a large fraction of an administered therapeutic agent to metastatic cancer. Despite this limitation, however, a greater understanding of the biological and physiological principles of tumor-targeted therapy has resulted in successful antibody-based therapy of lymphoma, colon cancer and breast cancer in recent clinical trials.