[Progress in clinical oncology 1978]

A short survey of recent progress in the diagnosis and pharmacotherapy of neoplastic diseases is conducted, with special mention of measurement of hormone receptors, needle biopsy, tactics and strategy of drug therapy, and new drugs. The importance of several forms of cooperation is stressed: cooperation between doctor and patient, between hospital physician and town physician, interdisciplinary cooperation, and cooperative clinical studies. Adjuvant chemotherapy and immunotherapy are new methods under study. The problems arising in the wake of progress in medical oncology and the ever increasing use of chemotherapy are loss of individual initiative in physicians working with protocols, and prohibitive costs are diagnostic and therapeutic procedures become more sophisticated.