Examination of leukaemic blasts sensitivity to cytostatic drugs using two short-term laboratory methods

The authors examined acute leukaemia cells sensitivity to anticancer drugs using 2 short-time methods: 1. Measurement of the inhibition of 3HTdr incorporation during 2 h incubation with cytostatic; 2. Evaluation of the cell viability in short-term (5 days) liquid culture. The 37% decrease in living cells count or in the rate of 3HTdr incorporation has been evaluated as indicating sensitivity to examined drugs. Out of many determinations performed by these use of 2 mentioned methods, those executed simultaneously were compared. Comparable results were obtained to arabinoside-cytosine testing, showing ca. 94% of sensitive cases.In relation to vincristine the 3HTdr incorporation method showed more often - in 82% of cases - sensitivity as compared to only 46% tested in culture method, whereas to daunorubicine more common effect on cultured cells viability (86%) than on tritiated thymidine incorporation (40%) could be observed. These differences remain to be elucidated as to their technical or biological sources. The sensitivity to L-asparaginase was shown only in about the half of cases by both methodes.