Biosynthetic Products for Cancer Chemotherapy

An overall view of the cancer problem and development of cancer chemothera­ 231 peutic biosynthetic products to February 1976 was presented in Volume 1. In the short time that has elapsed since the preparation of Volume 1, several very stimulating advances in application of biosynthetic cancer chemotherapeutic drugs in cancer treatment have been reported. At the May 1976 meeting (in Toronto) of the American Association for Cancer Research, a Sloan-Kettering research group summarized an improved treatment of human neuroblastoma using a combination of vincristine, cytoxan, trifluorothymidine, and papaverine. In the same period other clinical groups described significant advances in the cancer chemotherapeutic treatment of human breast cancer and oat cell carcinoma of the lung. Each of these newer advances in cancer treatment was based on combinations of biosynthetic and synthetic cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. Certainly, further examination of the antineoplastic biosynthetic agents summarized in this volume and the vast number yet to be discovered will eventually provide the means for controllil).g and/or curing the various types of human cancer.