The effect of chemotherapy on the kinetics and proliferative capacity of
normal and tumorous tissues in vivo
SH Rosenoff, JM Bull and RC Young
Section on Cellular Kinetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda 20014.
The proliferative state of a given tissue is a major determinant of its
sensitivity to both phase-specific and cycle-specific chemotherapeutic
agents. To study the extent of injury induced by antitumor agents to normal
and tumorous tissues, a technique for following DNA synthesis as reflected
in the incorporation of tritiated thymidine (3H-TdR) into DNA was compared
to the conventional radioautographic technique of the labeling index (LI)
and to the functional kinetic technique of granulocyte colony formation in
vitro. Alterations in DNA synthesis induced by a single dose of
cyclophosphamide in normal and tumorous tissues in vivo paralleled in many
respects the changes seen when the more time-consuming techniques of the LI
or granulocyte colony formation were employed. However, the recovery of
granulocyte colony formation after cyclophosphamide therapy lagged behind
the recovery of DNA synthesis in the bone marrow, obscuring a kinetic event
of potential therapeutic significance. The determination of DNA synthesis
simultaneously in normal and tumorous tissues in vivo was easy to perform
and supplied therapeutically pertinent results comparatively quickly.
Volume 45,
Issue 1,
pp. 107-118,
01/01/1975
Copyright © 1975 by The American Society of Hematology
