Factors affecting pharmacokinetics of monoclonal antibodies: A review article

Factors affecting the successful therapy of malignant diseases include the antibody dose used and the schedule of administration, the half-life and fast blood clearance of the antibodies, the presence of circulating antigen, poor tumor penetration of the high/molecular-weight monoclonal antibody (mAb) and the way in which these molecules are catabolized. To circumvent these limitations and achieve higher uptake, increased tumor penetration, faster blood clearance and longer retention in the tumors, there is a need to generate mAbs suitable for diagnosis as well as therapy and to develop novel strategies to increase the efficacy of immunotherapeutic treatments. There is a lack of knowledge about many aspects of the physiological function and metabolism of antibodies. This paper is intended to discuss factors that affect the pharmacokinetics of mAbs in human subjects with the purpose of forming possible strategies to optimize this approach for tumor diagnosis and therapy.