[From a scientific idea to clinical use]

In the nineteenth century, medicine, a former empiric skill, obtained its scientific basis owing to the development of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, histology, biochemistry and other natural sciences. Fast progress in medicine was thus possible, but at the same time made the introduction of new scientific ideas into clinical use very difficult and therefore majority of them never reach satisfactory clinical application. Two examples from the author's own experience are presented here.

Soon after the discovery of radioactivity, George Hevesy gave a scientific basis for its use as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool in medicine. The first nuclear medicine laboratory was established in Vojvodina in 1963 and during the following twenty years, clinical application of radioactive tracers was developed very successfully in this area. But in the subsequent years the use of nuclear medicine methods declined dramatically for many reasons, mainly because of unsatisfactory cost/benefit ratio.

The scientific idea of humoral regulation of hematopoiesis was proposed by Carnot at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it was introduced for clinical application only a hundred years later. It became possible by pharmaceutical production of recombinant hematopoietic growth factors by genetic engineering, and some of them, erythropoietin and granulocyte CSF, are available at high prices. They were used successfully for anemia in renal failure and some cases of neutropenic syndrome respectively, but compared to the initial expectations and quantity of research invested this is an unsatisfactory result.

The introduction of these two presented scientific ideas into clinical application failed because of inadequate organization of medical scientific research and lack of financial support.