In vivo labelling of granulocytes with 99mTc anti-NCA monoclonal antibodies for imaging inflammation.

We looked for inflammatory lesions in 45 patients using in vivo labelled granulocytes. For the purposes of cell labelling we used a murine, monoclonal antibody reacting with NCA and CEA (BW 250/183) (Bosslet et al. 1985) labelled with 99mTc-pertechnetate. All abscesses and other inflammatory lesions were visualized with excellent quality scintigrams between 2 and 6 h after the injection. As the antibody can be stored in a freeze-dried form and labelled at any time in any Department of Nuclear Medicine with 99mTc-pertechnetate, without cell isolation being necessary, the method appears to be suitable even for use in acute diagnosis. No side-effects have so far occurred, even in patients injected up to three times.