Aspects of paediatric oncology

Cancers of childhood tend to be aggressive and to be associated with poor prognoses. Early diagnosis is essential and simple methods of assessing response to therapy are critical. Nuclear Medicine procedures have proved invaluable. Achieving these objectives has become even more important by improvement in therapeutic regimes which have reduced the pessimistic prognoses. Recent advances in Nuclear Medicine equipment have markedly increased the sensitivity of the investigations and the introduction of new radiopharmaceuticals has greatly raised the specificity, so assisting in the interpretation of the significance of demonstrated abnormalities. Recent research indicates the probability of localizing the radioactive labelled agents, such as monoclonal antibodies, in specific tumours and even the possibility of using these agents for selective therapy.