[Comparison of blood-serum p53 concentrations in patients with advanced breast tumors before and after chemotherapy].

Investigations of the role of p53 in tumorigenesis and growth, implementation of antitumor effect of cytostatics as well as emergence of tumor resistance have generally received great emphasis. Since most research was mostly concerned with use of tumor tissues, its dynamic aspects were ignored. Our study was concerned with p53 assay of blood serum from 10 patients with advanced breast tumors who underwent tests before and after a second cycle of chemotherapy. Due to immunoblotting technique, p53 was identified in all patients. Its concentration varied significantly and was twice as high in some as compared with the others. Prior to treatment, distinct differences were recorded in content as well as and in the nature of its age-dependent variation after chemotherapy. The highest levels were recorded in the age group over 60 yrs. In most patients (5 out of 6) under 55, post-treatment concentrations rose, on the average, by 13% while in all 4 cases of more than 60, they dropped by an average of 18%.

[Results of a phase I-II clinical trial of Emoxyl, a novel antineoplastic anthracycline]. / Rezul'taty I-II fazy klinicheskogo izucheniia novogo protivoopukholevogo preparata iz gruppy antratsiklinov émoksila.

Emoxyl (ruboxyl) is a product of chemical modification of daunorubicin mediated by a stable free radical. The drug was given to 63 patients with different malignancies stages I-II. Inhibition of hemopoiesis (leukopenia and thrombocytopenia) was identified as the dose-limiting toxicity level. Alopecia or cardiotoxicity were not reported. A daily single dose of 100 mg/m2, 5 days, repeated in cycles after 3 weeks, proved the safest and most effective. Out of 55 cases evaluated for immediate effect, complete remission (breast cancer, small-cell cancer of the lung, Kaposi's sarcoma)--3; partial remission (breast cancer--2; non-Hodgkin's lymphoma--1)--3, and stabilization--26.

A physiologically-based explanation of disparity attraction and repulsion.

Westheimer and Levi [(1987) Vision Research, 27, 1361-1368] found that when a few isolated features are viewed foveally, the perceived depth of a feature depends not only on its own disparity but also on those of its neighbors. The nature of this interaction is a function of the lateral separation between the features: When the distance is small the features appear to attract each other in depth but the interaction becomes repulsive at larger distances. Here we introduce a two-dimensional extension of our recent stereo model based on the physiological studies of Ohzawa, DeAngelis and Freeman [(1990) Science, 249, 1037-1041] and demonstrate through analyses and simulations that these observations can be naturally explained without introducing ad hoc assumptions about the connectivity between disparity-tuned units. In particular, our model can explain the distance-dependent attraction/repulsion phenomena in both the vertical-line configuration used by Westheimer [(1986) Journal for Neurophysiology, 370, 619-629], and the horizontal-line-and-point configuration used by Westheimer and Levi. Thus, the psychophysically observed disparity interaction may be viewed as a direct consequence of the known physiological organization of the binocular receptive fields. We also find that the transition distance at which the disparity interaction between features changes from attraction to repulsion is largely determined by the preferred spatial frequency and orientation distributions of the cells used in the disparity computation. This result may explain the observed variations of the transition distance among different subjects in the psychophysical experiments. Finally, our model can also reproduce the observed effect on the perceived disparity when the disparity magnitude of the neighboring features is changed.

Relationship between phase and energy methods for disparity computation.

The phase and energy methods for computing binocular disparity maps from stereograms are motivated differently, have different physiological relevances, and involve different computational steps. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that at the final stages where disparity values are made explicit, the simplest versions of the two methods are exactly equivalent. The equivalence also holds when the quadrature-pair construction in the energy method is replaced with a more physiologically plausible phase-averaging step. The equivalence fails, however, when the phase-difference receptive field model is replaced by the position-shift model. Additionally, intermediate results from the two methods are always quite distinct. In particular, the energy method generates a distributed disparity representation similar to that found in the visual cortex, while the phase method does not. Finally, more elaborate versions of the two methods are in general not equivalent. We also briefly compare these two methods with some other stereo models in the literature.

[Comparative evaluation of 2 schedules of administration of anti- neoplastic drugs by the CMF protocol in disseminated breast cancer]. / Sravnitel'naia otsenka dvukh rezhimov vvedeniia protivoopukholevykh preparatov po skheme CMF pri disseminirovannom rake molochnoi zhelezy.

Combined chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, fluorouracil (CMF) in two regimens of administration was comparatively assessed in a randomized and prospective trial. Group I patients (n = 34) received methotrexate and fluorouracil once a week and cyclophosphamide every other day for 15 days. In group II (n = 32) all the drugs were given simultaneously once weekly for 15 days. A complete and partial response occurred significantly more frequently in patients of group I (36%) versus group II (7%). The intergroup difference in toxicity appeared insignificant.

[Survival of patients with disseminated small-cell lung cancer]. / Vyzhivaemost' bol'nykh rasprostranennym melkokletochnym rakom legkogo.

The kinetics of survival in patients with small-cell lung cancer was studied versus the effectiveness of treatment. Survival in localized carcinoma was found to be significantly higher than that in extended tumor. The study of 54 patients given nitrosomethylurea-based combination chemotherapy showed survival in chemotherapy responders to be significantly higher than in cases of resistant tumors. The results of treatment as far as survival is concerned did not differ from those generally reported.

[The role of mycoplasma in sterility. A study of 150 sterile women (author's transl)]. / Rôle des mycoplasmes dans la stérilité. Etude de 150 femmes stériles.

150 women who were being treated for sterility had their cervical mucus searched for T. mycoplasma. Group I: 123 women who had no obvious cause for sterility. 45.5 per cent had T. mycoplasma (56/123). Group II: Out of 27 women who had a major cause for sterility there were 48 per cent (13/27) who were carriers of T. mycoplasma. The incidence of T. mycoplasma in control fertile women was 53 per cent (16/30). After treatment with Doxycycline: 5 pregnancies were obtained out of Group I, which is 8.9 per cent. none in Group II. The mycoplasma seems to play a very minor role in sterility. Its incidence is identically the same in women who are sterile or normally fertile. With treatment only a very small percentage (8.9 per cent) of pregnancies were obtained in carriers of mycoplasma who did not have another obvious cause for their sterility.

Serum alpha-fetroprotein concentration in adult patients under corticoid, estroprogestative or androgen therapy.

The serum alpha-fetoprotein concentration was measured by radioimmunoassy in 41 women with or without hormonal contraception, 21 patients with rheumatoid arthritis given corticosteroids or not, and 6 patients under androgen therapy for aplastic anemia. None of these therapies induced any significant variation of the serum alpha-fetoprotein level. More extensive studies are needed to investigate the possible effect of these hormones on the metabolism of this protein at a cellular level.

PIP: Serum alpha-fetoprotein concentration was measured by radioimmunoassay in 41 women with or without hormonal contraception, 21 pateints with rheumatoid arthritis given corticosteroids or untreated, and 6 patients under androgen therapy for aplastic anemia. The various therapies were ineffective in inducing any change in alpha-fetoprotein level. Future research should focus on the metabolism of this protein at a cellular level in the presence of these hormones.