[Cell cultures. Complementary or alternative methods to animal experimentation]

In vitro methods, which appeared at the beginning of the century, have had exponential development since one decade for ethical and technological reasons. They can be used for studies concerning intracellular, intercellular or environmental activities. Despite of limiting factors, these techniques offer certain advantages which have to be optimized in order to be validated. They are actually complementary, used for exploratory purposes. In the future, they could replace partially but not completely some in vivo experiments.