Osteosarcoma: experience of the Tata Memorial Hospital, Bombay, India.

This is a report on the management of 210 patients with biopsy-proven OS seen at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Bombay, India from January 1985 to December 1988. The treatment administered to these patients reflects the constraints experienced in cancer management by developing nations. The small number of patients who received neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy showed the highest survival figures of 30% at 5 years. In the context of the developing countries, limitations of affordability of optimum chemotherapy and the lack of adequate monitoring and support facilities warrant modifications in the currently recommended therapy schedule to suit indigenous needs.

Circumdural decompression by posterior vertebrectomy for relief of cord compression due to metastatic disease of thoracic and lumbar spine.

Circumdural cord decompression with total or almost total vertebrectomy in the thoracic or lumbar spine through a posterior approach can provide optimal decompression of neural tissue. This procedure combined with posterior instrumentation and immediate reconstruction of the anterior defect with polymethylmethacrylate can provide adequate stabilization. Immediate ambulation with minimal external support is possible. This single operative approach is preferred to anterior (transthoracic or retroperitoneal) decompression due to high morbidity associated with the latter. The authors' experience with this procedure in four cases is presented.

Conversion to estriol in "normal", benign and malignant human breast tissues.

Since there are controversial reports in the literature on 16 alpha-hydroxylase activity in human breast tumors, we have studied this enzyme activity in "normal", benign and malignant breast tissues by measuring the conversion of estradiol to estriol. Whereas 8 out of 14 (58%) malignant tumors showed positive activity, none of the other tissues had any detectable 16 alpha-hydroxylase activity. These preliminary results, when combined with reports in the literature on animal and human tissues, appear to indicate that more extensive studies on this enzyme could be useful as it could be an additional metabolic marker in human breast cancer.

Natural killer and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity in cervical carcinoma patients.

Natural killer (NK) cell activity and antibody dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) was measured in 62 untreated cervical carcinoma patients and 25 normal healthy women, using a short-term chromium release assay. A significant reduction in NK and ADCC activity was observed in disseminated disease than in localized disease, when compared with normal donors. The majority of the patients received radiotherapy and both NK and ADCC activity recovered after therapy. Furthermore, interferon-alpha was demonstrated to augment NK activity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy donors as well as patients. Also large granular lymphocytes separated on Percoll density gradient were the same in number in both the populations studied, although in cervical cancer there seemed to be a defect in killing activity.

Ectopic production of human placental lactogen by human breast tumors.

Serum samples from 72 patients with established carcinoma of the breast were investigated for ectopic presence of hPL. Further, the relationship of ectopically-secreted hPL and hCG-beta in breast cancer was investigated. Ten of 72 patients examined had detectable hPL and 12 had detectable hCG-beta, at 1-2 ng/ml serum sensitivity of the assay. The presence of hPL in serum of breast cancer patients was found to be independent of that of hCG-Beta. Sera of 13 patients with cystic mastitis, five with fibroadenoma, two with acute inflammation of breast, 20 normal women (non-pregnant) and 20 normal men did not show any detectable serum hPL or hCG-beta at the above mentioned sensitivity of the assay. Since these hormones were not detectable in normal men, normal non-pregnant women, and in patients having other pathological conditions of breast, the possible use of them as markers in cancer is expected

Circulating levels of prolactin in human breast cancer.

Serum prolactin concentrations were measured by radioimmunoassays in 98 patients with established carcinoma of breast, 12 patients with cystic mastitis and 10 patients with gynaecomastia and compared with that of age matched normal control women. The serum prolactin levels in the patients with breast cancer, gynaecomastia or cystic mastitis were observed to be similar to that in normal women. It was interesting to note that the levels of prolactin in the luteal phase of the cycle were higher than that in the early follicular phase in normal women.