Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.

Peripheral neurotoxicity is an important side-effect of several chemotherapeutic agents. These agents may cause a usually axonal neuropathy, which may ultimately lead to severe and disabling symptoms and signs. We describe in this review the pathogenesis, clinical presentation, neurophysiologic findings, nerve biopsies and the relation between cumulative dosage/dosage per cycle and neuropathy for the cytostatic drugs for which neurotoxicity is an important side-effect: cisplatin, vincristine, paclitaxel, docetaxel and suramin.

Positive and negative effects of tumor necrosis factor on colony growth from highly purified normal marrow progenitors.

The effects of recombinant human tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) on colony growth were studied using highly enriched progenitor cells from normal human bone marrow. Supplementation of TNF to culture resulted in a dose-dependent suppression of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) induced granulocytic colony formation and also erythropoietin (Epo) induced erythroid burst formation. However, the number of erythroid bursts, stimulated by interleukin-3 (IL-3) plus Epo, increased when TNF was added at comparable concentrations.

Human AML colony growth in serum-free culture.

Here we report experiments dealing with the development of a fully serum-free culture system for AML cell proliferation. A number of compounds were tested for the requirements of AML colony formation and DNA synthesis in vitro in an attempt to replace serum with an artificial mixture. The results indicate that bovine serum albumin (BSA, 15 mg/ml), cholesterol (7.