Adding duborimycin to the association of vincristine + DTIC in the treatment of malignant melanoma produces therapeutic results interesting but not statistically significant and not counter-balancing the toxic side effects. This study confirms the lack of positive results of polychemotherapy in melanoma as compared to treatment by an efficacious single drug therapy (DTIC); it also emphasizes the necessity of randomized studies so that valuable comparisons may be done.

The authors report a case of stomatitis, in a patient receiving antimitotic therapy, which was found to be due to an acute leukosis. They feel that patients on antimitotics who develop stomatitis should have a white cell count to exclude leukosis, which is not a very rare finding today.

Extrinsic allergic alveolitis of drug origin is now a better known branch of respiratory pathology. The symptoms and course of these cases resemble in many ways those of extrinsic allergic alveolitis in general with a few differences. The list of drugs responsible is longer every day, and it is important to be aware of it. The diagnosis of these diseases is not always easy, as there are certain similarities between them and other long diseases either iatrogenic or not, but not immuno-allergic. Our physiopathological knowledge is based on already known data concerning allergic alveolitis, but includes many theories which still have to be verified. It is important for the clinician to be aware of this new type of respiratory disease as the treatment includes withdrawal of the responsible drug as soon as possible, failing which irreversible pulmonary fibrosis develops.

RFCNU or (chloro-2-ethyl)-l-(ribofuranosyl-isopropylidene-2', 3' paranitrobenzoate-5')-3 nitrosourea, a new synthetic nitrosourea derivative, which has been shown to have, in mice, among all nitrosourea derivatives tested, the longest maximallly efficient dose interval (MEDI) and which is not immunosuppressive at the smallest dose of MEDI, gave in a phase II trial on digestive tract tumours (at the dose of 400 mg/m2 per month determined by the phase I trial), 30% objective remissions among which 13% were greater than 50%.

Thirty two patients with malignant lymphoma - mainly Hodgkin's disease - were randomized for simultaneous treatment by high doses of metenolone during MOPP chemotherapy, to reduce its hematological toxicity. The results have shown surprisingly an increased hemato-toxicity in patients receiving androgens, with significantly more marked anemia and thrombocytopenia, reducing the total doses of anti-cancer drugs. This side effect could be explained by a cycling of the hematopoietic stem-cells and call to some caution when androgens are used during cancer chemotherapy.

In previous researches, it has been observed that the human amniotic fluid presents in vitro an antineoplasic action. 75% of the examined amniotic fluids contain an anti HCG principle. In order to evaluate if the effect of amniotic fluid is due to this principle, cultures of tumoral tissue have been performed, with the Wolff and Wolff's method, using media containing either positive amniotic fluid or negative amniotic fluid. Results obtained with positive amniotic fluid have confirmed the previous observations. A complete degeneration of both tumoral tissue and mesonephros was observed when the culture medium was enriched with negative amniotic fluid.

Deep visceral fungus infections, induced by occasional pathogens, have caused a new class of diseases, and occupy a more and more important place among the complications due to immunosuppressive agents. The experience of the Mycology Unit of the Pasteur Institute, where recent techniques of mycological and immunological diagnosis of these fungus infections are used, is reported here. 24 patients submitted to corticosteroids and other immunosuppressive treatments, including 6 renal transplants and one liver transplant, developed deep visceral infection with septicemia due to Candida, in a series of 106 cases of deep candidiasis due to massive antibiotic treatment diagnosed over the last few years. The mycological, immunological and therapeutic data obtained after treatment with amphotericin B and 5-fluorocytosine are reported here. 8 cases of meningeal, pulmonary and bony and cutaneous cryptococcosis, occurring after corticotherapy (6 cases), radiotherapy (1 case) and renal transplantation (one case), are presented together with the favourable results (6 cures out of 8) obtained with amphotericin B and 5-fluorocytosine, eight alone or in association. The authors also report 2 cases of aspergillosis, one in the lung, occurring in a case of renal transplantation who was given, at an early stage, amphotericin B and 5-fluorocytosine, thanks to rapid laboratory diagnosis, and another case in a heart transplant with pulmonary and cerebral localisations from which the patient died. The literature on these fungus infections, together with the mucormycoses, nocardioses and other fungus and antinomycosal complications are reported, together with parasitic infections the severity of which is emphasized in renal transplants, in particular P. carinii pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, strongyloidiasis and other parasitic diseases.

Bacterial infections are the most common cause of death in patients with malignant blood diseases. After recalling the main bacteria responsible and the factors which predispose patients to infection, the authors consider various forms of treatment, including antibiotic therapy, transfusions of white blood cells, gammaglobulins, etc., and prophlyactic measures, such as antibiotics by mouth, isolation in a sterile ward, etc., which have been proposed for some years. During renal grafts, infective complications are also very frequenct. Their prevention is essential for on this, to a large extent, depends the success of the transplantation.

During acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children, bacterial infections occur during initial treatment, whereas virus infections are observed during remission. Mycoses and pneumocystis carinii infections are the commonest late complications. During agranulocytosis, any prolonged fever should be considered as due to infection and probably septicemia. The bacteria are usually of digestive origin. Antibiotic therapy is only very inconstantly efficacious, and the course follows closely the number of granular cells, thus justifying the use of white cell transfusions.

The effects of six chemotherapeutic drugs currently used in human gliomas treatment were tested with an in vitro cytotoxicity test. Out of six, VM 26 proved to be the most potent against tumor cells along with a moderate cytotoxicity against normal brain or embryonnic human cells. This specificity did not seem to be related to differences in cellular growth rates.