[Intraoperative radiation therapy: its technological support, potentials and prospects].

The authors' experience with intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) in 129 patients with a tumorous process at various sites has demonstrated that in most clinical events, single radiation doses of 10-20 Gy is insufficient to have a persistent local effect and requires additional pre- or postoperative remote irradiation. The use of IORT as a single component of radiation exposure does not lead to significant radiation damages to normal tissues. When IORT is combined with remote irradiation (the latter using doses of 30-60 Gy), 30% of patients develop radiation-induced normal tissue lesions.

[A computer system for planning radiation therapy--the ROPLAN].

A computerized system of optimum plans of radiotherapy (computer SM 1420) was developed for the first time in the USSR. The ROPLAN system was adapted to a dosimetric design of irradiation sessions for all radiotherapy units, manufactured in the USSR, and provides for modes of initialization, design, storage and collection of data for all radiotherapeutic methods.

[Prospects of development of radiotherapy in an oncological clinic].

It is believed that new anticancer potential of radiotherapy lies in further research efforts in the fields of: clinical radiobiology, utilization of the last developments in radiological equipment, overall high quality of radiological service. Research in radiobiology should be aimed at the design of nonstandard dose fractionation, introduction of various modifiers and their combinations, prediction of individual responses of the tumor to ionizing radiation. First-hand clinical data on 3000 cases support the promise of such approach.

[Present trends in the development of radiotherapy].

New potentialities of radiotherapy of cancer patients are associated with three scientific directions: investigations in clinical radiology, the use of advantages of radiation advanced technology and guarantees of therapeutic quality. The first direction includes scientifically substantiated regimens of non-classic dose fractionation, various radiomodifiers and their combinations, and individual prognosis of a tumor response to ionizing radiation. This direction based on 3000 cases, holds promise.

[Use of radiomodifiers during radiotherapy of patients with malignant tumors].

The utilization of various radiomodifiers (hyperbaric oxygenation, metronidazole and their combination, tourniquet and total body gas hypoxia, unconventional dose fractionation) in radiation therapy of over 2000 cancer patients with tumors of the main sites made it possible to raise therapeutic efficacy using a differentiated approach to a choice of therapeutic tactics with relation to radiobiological specificities. The results obtained made it possible to determine the prospects of a further study of the efficacy of the utilization of HBO and MZ and their combination. Tourniquet hypoxia in view of a narrow range of indications and danger of a tumor protection effect should be abandoned.

Studies of metronidazole radiosensitizing effect in radiation treatment of patients with oral cavity cancer.

Clinical observations of 26 patients with tongue, oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancer receiving telegammatherapy by dynamic dose fractionation scheme in combination with metronidazole (MZ) and of 38 patients from control group treated by identical schedule without MZ suggest that MZ favors increasing of the radiation damage in tumors of those sites without changing the character or intensifying early radiation reactions. After oral administration of MZ in single doses of 5-6 g/m2 it reaches its maximum in the blood serum within 2-4 h. When the total dose of 30-60 g of MZ was used, a marked toxic effect manifested by gastrointestinal symptoms was observed in 33.

[Camphor preparations in the overall therapy of cerebral infarct].

The authors studied the platelet functional properties and the brain bioelectric activity in 20 patients with acute cerebrovascular diseases before and after subcutaneous injection of 2.0 ml of racemic camphor T, as well as before and after oral taking of monobromated camphor in a dose of 0.5 g 3 times a day.

[Prognosis of transient disorders of cerebral circulation and risk factors in the development of stroke].

The paper is concerned with the results of a study of 140 patients who had had transient disorders of cerebral circulation. Among these cases 47 were subjected to a prospective observation and 93 to a retrospective one. The authors analyse 32 possible risk factors of brain stroke in patients with transient disorders of cerebral circulation.