Clinical evaluation of anti-alpha-fetoprotein radioimmunodetection.

Anti-alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) radioimmunodetection was performed in response to clinical requests in 16 patients. In two patients, assessment of a known tumour was required; the anti-AFP scans were accurate and provided useful clinical information in both cases. In the remaining 14 patients the request was for localisation of suspected recurrent tumour. Accurate information was provided in four of these patients. In this latter group, various conventional methods of investigation had failed to disclose the site of recurrence. However, of a total of 21 sites reported as positive in these 14 patients, eight proved to be false positives. Two false negative results also occurred in this group and nine could not be evaluated. Although occasionally patients were usefully scanned, improvements are necessary before consistently reliable information can be obtained using this technique.