[Application of flow cytometry to chemotherapy of malignant brain tumor]

It has been suggested that flow cytometric analysis may offer an ability to select drugs for chemotherapy of malignant neoplasms. For this purpose perturbation of cell cycle travers which induced by several anti-cancer drugs were studied to determine the fundamental factors to evaluate the effectiveness of therapy for individual tumors. From these results, we have made a presumption that for the majority drugs studied, the perturbation of cell cycle travers will be proportional to tumor cell kill. Primary cultured cells from the human brain tumor were used to determine the effectiveness of drugs for its treatment using Factor B (the accumulated cells in SG2M phases after anti-cancer drug treatment as the percentage of cells that was previously in SG2M phases) in comparison with the results (dose-response curves) obtained by glioma cell line. The clinical application was tried using these results. A case with malignant astrocytoma had shown 20.8% for ACNU treatment, however, 85.7% for VCR treatment in maximum range of Factor B on the samples of the removed tumor at the operation (cultured cells). This patient was already treated with radiation, ACNU and other anti-cancer drugs but subsequently failed and revealed constant growth in tumor size. Thereafter patient was treated with VCR according to flow cytometric indication, there was a response, that was the first time after the desperate trials of various drugs. It was only one case, nevertheless, this result illustrates the type of studies for our plan to pursue in order to determine if flow cytometric analysis aids in the brain tumor chemotherapy by individualizing patient's treatment in near future.