Effect of different antitumor drugs on the hemostasis system in oncological patients is shown to have many features in common. The differences mainly consist in the degree and duration of disorders, a shift of the balance toward hyper- or hypocoagulation, which was due to drugs toxicity with relation to the chains of the hemostasis system, individual susceptibility, the state of essential thrombocytopoiesis, etc.

This review concerns the modern trends and experimental approaches to the study of cell cycle (cell population kinetics, cell structure and functions at various steps of the cycle,, etc.) and their input into the current views of cell proliferation controls. The resting state of the cell is considered and metabolic features of proliferating and resting cells are compared. Evidence is presented that resting cells are metabolically active and less resistant to the damaging factors that it has been previously supposed. The importance of this finding for biology and medicine, especially for cancer chemotherapy, is discussed.

The effect of carminomycin on the liver energetic metabolism was studied experimentally on rats in dynamics after its intraperitoneal administration in a single LD50 and the therapeutic doses for a treatment course. It was found that changes in the rat liver tissues on the part of the energetic metabolism occurred irrespective of the antibiotic dose and the administration multiplicity. Mainly they were of reversible nature: the balance of consumption and resynthesis of the phosphate macroergs was impaired, the glycolytic processes increased, shifts in the activity of the enzymes of the pentose phosphate pathway of oxydation were observed. The level of the above changes was more pronounced when carminomycin was administered in LD50. The adrenal system played an important role in the mechanism of the shifts noted.

Morphologic alterations in epithelium, caused by imcompetency of retinoids in a diet, were similar to those, obtained after treatment with chemical carcinogens. This suggests to use various derivatives of nature retinoids for treatment of epithelial tumors in skin and other tissues. Cultures of mouse prostatic gland and skin epithelium from metatarsus of chicken embryo were used for study of antitumoral activity of various synthetic retinoids. The most active preparations proved to be cyclopentenyl- and trimethyl methoxyphenyl ethyl ester derivatives of retinolic acid. The antitumoral effect of retinolic acid and its derivatives appears to involve a tight binding of the preparations with specific protein and inhibition of ornithine decarboxylase in tumor. The enzyme is well known to be related to synthesis of DNA, RNA and protein.

A single administration of carminomycin, ribomycin or olivomycin in LD50 or treatment of the experimental animals with these antibiotics for 10 days in the therapeutic doses equal to 10 per cent of the LD50 induced distrophic and necrobiotic changes in the liver. The use of bruneomycin in the equivalent doses induced sclerotic process in addition to the above doses resulted in a decrease in the colour intensity of DNA, RNA and protein as compared to the control, the content of glycogen and a marked increase in the amount of lipids in the hepatocyte cytoplasm. The most pronounced shifts were observed with the use of carminomycin, rubomycin and especially bruneomycin in single doses. With the use of olivomycin in a single dose the shifts were less pronounced. It should be noted that with the use of carminomycin and rubomycin the damages were of the same character by their intensity. The changes in the liver on the use of carminomycin, rubomycin and olivomycin in single doses or during the treatment course were reversible, while on the use of bruneomycin they preserved to the end of the experiment.

Experimental data on the pharmacokinetics, toxicity, antitumor activity of the antitumor drug diiodo-benzo-TEPA are reported.