The paper presents summarized data on numerous biologically active compounds found in plants. Their anticancer preventive potential is analyzed as well as possibility of their use to stimulate anticancer resistance of the body. Antimutagenic, anticarcinogenic, immunomodulating and other characteristics of organic and inorganic compounds of plant origin are considered in detail. Carotinoids, tocopherols, polyphenols, etc. are examined for the preventive potential against cancer. Some compounds and plant extracts are believed influential in initiation, promotion and progression of malignant tumors.

The effect of calipsol and thiopental (the most frequent drugs used for basis anesthesia), as well as their combinations with narcotic analgesics fentanyl, morphine, promedole and a neuroleptic droperidol on the level of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in patients with colonic cancer has been studied. A significant effect of anesthetics on CEA level in the postoperative period has been established. The lowest CEA level was observed when calipsol, morphine, and promedole were used as components of narcotic analgesics.

Compatibility in mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) test was determined for 60 hemoblastosis patients with their 71 HLA-identical sibs to transplant allogenic syngeneic bone marrow. A protocol for the MLC radioisotope micromethod with culturing in plates is described for the pair donor-recipient in the direct and reverse variants covering about 20 variants of mixed cultures. This secures the results' reliability. Plotting of the MLC compatibility results for each pair has been proposed. Incompatibility by MLC was revealed in 5 out of 71 pairs (7%). Bone marrow transplantation was performed in 30 patients from their HLA-identical/MLC-compatible sibs. The secondary disease due to incompatibility missed in the MLC reaction occurred in 5 cases (16.7%), transplant rejection in 2 cases (6.7%), which is less in number than literature data. It was established that determination of compatibility by MLC may serve a reliable criterion of assessing a genotypic pair HLA identity and should be conducted before each allogenic and syngeneic transplantation of bone marrow. The protocols of the method performance and compatibility parameters evaluation warrant high significance of the compatibility definition confirmed by clinical responses with minimal probability of secondary disease.

Methods, used for indirect determination of single-thread breaks' quantity in DNA, based on it's denaturation in alkali medium and further determination of double-thread DNA quantity by it's fluorescence has been adapted to the measuring of thread disturbances on leukemia P-388 cells. Influence of cells' and alkali concentrations and the time of denaturation of quantity of double-thread DNA has been investigated.

In experiments with Chinese hamster cells and Ehrlich ascites tumor cells it has been shown that a decrease in intracellular pH from 7.0 to 6.0, produced by 0.1 M phosphate buffer, ameliorates the radiation injury to cells (DMF = 1.35) with respect to their clonogenic capacity and induction of chromosome aberrations. The rate of repair of DNA single-strand breaks, within the pH range under study, is invariable.

The site of the break of chromosome 22 was investigated by blot hybridization and polymerase chain reaction in 41 patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). It is stated that the break site in various regions is not associated with the disease stage and clinicohematological manifestations in the time of the diagnosis. The break in the 5' subregion was indicative of longer survival than that in the subregion 3' patients. Median survival reached 60.8 and 32.4 months, respectively.

Using oligonucleotide probes, sequences containing the Mbcr locus involved in chromosome translocation t(9:22) were cloned form the library of human genes in the Charon 4A vector. The recombinant clone lambda BCR 1.1 obtained contained Mbcr sequences, but the 3' region of the Mbcr locus in lambda BCR 1.1 clone was strongly altered. Subcloning of a fragment of the altered region and blot hybridization analysis using it as a DNA probe revealed recombination in the 3' region of the Mbcr locus in clone lambda BCR 1.1 which resulted in insertion of unknown sequences into the region. A modified system is suggested for chromosome 22 breakpoint identification using restriction analysis of genome DNA with four restriction endonucleases and one 5'-DNA probe.

Expression of genes, associated with leukemic transformation and called x-mla, was studied in cells of various types of experimental leukemia and in homologous normal cells. Augmentation of x-mla expression in malignant haemopoietic cells and lack or very low expression in normal tissues and non-haemopoietic tumors of mice and rats has been revealed. The involving of x-mla in proliferation control of leukemic but not normal cells has been shown. Product of x-mla--p46 was synthesized in cell-free translational system and purified. Its amino acid composition was determined and its mitogenic, RNAase activities, and ability to phosphorylation have been investigated.

Fifty-eight lung cancer and 71 gastric cancer patients were matched with corresponding healthy controls versus such risk factors as age, sex, nationality, tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking and occupation. HLA-antigens and dermatoglyphic patterns were used as genetic markers. Multivariate analysis employed mathematical procedures of pattern recognition. The results using HLA-antigen technique were not satisfactory. On the contrary, lung cancer studies based on 16 most informative dermatoglyphic parameters yielded reliable decision rules which proved 100% effective in control group and 83.3% effective in cancer patients. In gastric cancer studies, the best results (87.5% of correctly recognized patterns in both groups) were obtained, when 20 parameters were used. Correlations between pattern types and cancer of the lung and stomach have been identified. It is suggested that complete dermatoglyphic picture may be used as a marker of genetic predisposition to oncological disease.

Article covers methodic approaches to tackle problems of individual propensity to malignancies. Genetic propensity to pulmonary cancer and gastric carcinoma was supported by studies using genetic markers: HLA antigens and dermatoglyphics. Dermatoglyphic picture was proved to predict possibility of malignancy more reliably than antigens.

The authors describe 4 cases of Kennedy's medullo-spinal amyotrophy (BSA) which is a genetically determined disease with mutant gene inheritance by the recessive type with X chromosome cohesion. The disease largely shows up by the impairment of the nervous system in the form of BSA. However, the clinical picture is also marked by the derangement of the mesenchymal (Dupuytren's contracture) and endocrine systems (gynecomastia).

The authors analyze injuries to the central nervous system in patients with heart myxomas due to tumorous embolism of brain vessels with the development of acute or "delayed" cerebral symptomatology. Stress the difficulty of correct interpretation of acute disorders of cerebral circulation with no other signs of intracavitary heart neoplasm and the possibility of the asymptomatic form of cerebrovascular embolism or its consequences in association with a remarkable clinical picture of heart myxoma. Emphasis is laid on the necessity of carrying out all-round examination of the brain to reveal injuries that may occur under such conditions, to determine the prognosis and treatment policy in the given patients' group, especially in the long-term period after resection of intracavitary heart neoplasm.

Three families suspected of predisposition to tumor development in the gastrointestinal tract have been followed in a medico- and cytogenetical study. According to genealogical analysis, cancer predisposition was confirmed in one family only. However, both specific and non-specific signs of genome instability and possible malignant transformation of cells were identified in members of the other two families.

The Mendelian inheritance of population genetic markers according to their zygosity has been established in a population investigation carried out in Kazakhstan and the northwestern region of Russia, using the 5'PstEJ6.6 DNA probe genetic variability both for persons of different nationality in a population and between two distant populations has been observed. Said procedure has proved more acceptable than the M13 phage DNA test for mass screening examinations because it involves genome analysis on the basis of DNA markers common to each population.