[Immunoscintigraphy in the diagnosis of choroid melanoma]

This study was aimed at evaluating the role of 99mTc-labelled anti-melanoma antibodies as in vivo tumor markers in the diagnosis of uveal melanomas. Usually, neither conventional semeiological techniques nor more recent diagnostic imaging methods allow a differential diagnosis to be made of benign and malignant intra-ocular tumors. Immunoscintigraphy was employed to examine 9 patients with monolateral reduction of sight, and photopsy. All patients were previously submitted to funduscopy, fluorescein angiography, and US. Four hours after iv injection of 370 MBq of 99mTc F(ab1)2, we obtained 500,000-count images of skull, abdomen, and thorax, with a computerized gamma camera equipped with a general-purpose collimator. A SPET of the head followed the conventional examination. Our first results seem promising enough for further study to be carried out to assess immunoscintigraphy specificity in the diagnosis of uveal melanoma.