Recent progress in the immunological monitoring of carcinomas using monoclonal antibodies

In efforts to improve the specificity and sensitivity of tests to monitor patients with carcinoma, monoclonal antibody technology has been widely embraced by the scientific community. Results clearly indicate that novel antigen determinants have been identified and that significant improvements have been realized for the study of "classical" tumor antigens previously detected with polyclonal reagents. The concept of tumor specificity has also been amenable to an increased level of objectivity as based upon the probelike characteristic of monoclonal antibodies. It is apparent from this work that an antigen does not have to be tumor specific to be useful as a marker.