70th anniversary of the Lviv scientific school of oncology.

Contemporary development of scientific thought is fostered not by separate people but is a purposeful activity of a group of like-minded people armed with progressive ideas and modern technical equipment. Such schools appeared and work actively in the majo­rity of research and educational establishments, clinics, and universities. The Lviv school established in 1945 by Professor H.P. Kovtunovych and developed by Professor A.I. Hnatyshak and his disciples can serve as an example of a successful school of oncology that continues its activity and yields scientific results. This school appeared not out of the thin air. Medieval Lviv could boast of the first university on the territory of the present-day Ukraine. Many discoveries and endeavors that made a beneficial impact on the development of medicine in Eastern Europe were made in this city. For historical reasons, the city of Lviv used to belong to different state formations (Austria-Hungary, Poland, the USSR; now it is a part of Ukraine), which could not but reflect on the staffing of doctor-researchers. This process acquired a special intensity in 1939-1945 when the research staff of the university changed substantially. Then, in 1945, H.P. Kovtunovych, the disciple of the prominent oncologist N.N. Petrov, came to Lviv and brought the ideas of St.-Petersburg onco­logy to the Lviv ground. The Lviv school was influenced by the two times Nobel Prize winner Marie Sklodowska Curie, who facilitated the initiation of oncological radiology in Lviv. The article contains data on research done by the disciples of Professors H.P. Kovtunovych and A.I. Hnatyshak. The first ever teaching chair of oncology in the USSR was founded in Lviv (1966), as well as the first Ukrainian hospice--an institution for palliative care for the oncological patients. The Lviv oncology center is one of the biggest and best-equipped oncology centers in Ukraine. An organic combination of theory and clinical practice has always been the guiding principle of the Lviv school of oncology. Presently, the Lviv school of oncology unites six doctors of sciences, a large collective of educators and researchers, as well as practitioners of the center of oncology. The school maintains close scientific and practical ties with oncologists of Ukraine as well as with leading oncological centers of Europe and America.

[Combined treatment of recurrent ovarian cancer using citoreductive surgery and intraoperative hypertermical introabdominal hyper fusion].

This article analyses results of combined treatment of 40 female patients' age 28-73 (average 55) years with recurrent ovarian cancer who were treated in the Lviv state oncologist regional medically-diagnostic center from 2008 to 2010 year, using citoreductial interferes and introoperational pyrexias introabdominal hyper fusion.

[Evaluation of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in cancer patients]. / Otsenka aktivnosti faktora nekroza opukholei (FNO) u onkologicheskikh bol'nykh.

The levels of TNF spontaneously produced in monocyte and macrophage supernatants were measured in 65 patients with tumors of different localization and stages. The TNF levels in blood monocyte and macrophage supernatants obtained from peritoneal washings were found to significantly differ from those in blood serum in the same patients. The highest TNF concentrations were registered in monocytes supernatants sampled from rectal and breast cancer patients. A relationship between cancer cachexia and TNF level is discussed.

[Local cellular immune reactions in cancer patients]. / Mestnye kletochnye immunnye reaktsii u onkologicheskikh bol'nykh.

The analysis of 178 cases of stage I-II breast cancer showed morphological features of local cell-mediated immune reactions to be of limited prognostic value. A comparative evaluation of some characteristics of cell surface receptors, such as ability to spontaneous rosette formation with sheep erythrocytes and sensitivity to theophylline, was carried out in lymphocyte samples obtained from tumor tissue and peripheral blood of 76 cancer patients. The said parameters were studied in breast cancer patients with respect to presence or absence of regional metastases. Several patterns of rosette-forming cell reaction to theophylline were identified, the incidence of some of them being determined by the presence or absence of regional metastases. The level and functional activity of surface receptors of tumor mononuclear cells proved to influence prognosis.

[Comparative study of the lymphocyte surface receptors isolated from the blood and tissue of malignant tumors]. / Sravnitel'noe izuchenie poverkhnostnykh retseptorov limfotsitov, vydelennykh iz krovi i tkani zlokachestvennykh opukholei.

Comparative investigation of subpopulations and functional properties of lymphocytes isolated from the tumour tissue (TTL) as well as of lymphocytes of the peripheral blood (PBL) of 11 lung cancer patients and 18 breast cancer patients has shown that an increase in the quantity of theophylline-sensitive cells (suppressors and killers) is characteristic of TTL. After 20 hours of incubation of the mixture of the studied lymphocytes and sheep erythrocytes at 4 degrees C an increase in the number of E-RFC proved to be more intensive for TTL than for PBL. The result obtained may suggest the blocking of the superficial receptors of TTL to sheep erythrocytes.