[Monoclonal antibodies to digestive-tract cancer]

There have been few reports concerning monoclonal antibodies to human digestive-tract cancers and CEA. Recently, we established several monoclonal antibodies to either gastric cancer, colorectal cancer or CEA using a CEA-secreting gastric cancer cell line or a purified CEA preparation as immunogen. In this review, we mainly described serologic and molecular characterization of both CEA-related and CEA-unrelated antigens detected by the monoclonal antibodies originated in our laboratory. We also introduced some approaches to the clinical application of the monoclonal antibodies described in the literature.