Klin Onkol 1995; 8(5): 131-134.
Summary: In contrast to necrosis, a passive form of cell destruction, apoptosis is considered to be a programmed active process, which has a great significance especially for tissue homeostasis. That is why disordes in processes controlling apoptosis are of great clinical significance. It is therefore surprising that in clinical research the apoptosis has been neglected for a long time. In spite of increasing knowledge in the last few years many problems of apoptosis remain unclear. It is apparent, that this process is controlled (both in positive and negative ways) by genes and their products, which regulate the cell cycle, proliferation and diferentiation. But it is already well known now, that the relation between cell division and death determines the rate of neoplastic growth and that imbalance of these two processes can result in developmental abnormalities and facilitate the development of tumors. The balance between resistance and tendency to apoptosis of a cell is affected by a number of factors, such as viability factors, cytokines, hormones etc. In the last years genes regulating apoptosis, such as bcl-2, p53 etc. were identified. A lot of anticancer agents (cytostatics, gamma- or UV-radiation, hyperthermia) can cause disturbances in regulation of the cell cycle, which often result in apoptosis. The aim for the future strategy in tumor therapy is to define and exploit those factors, which could selectively block or induce apoptosis. Detection of apoptotic changes in tumors could be one of the possibilities of evaluating the efficiency of anticancer therapy. The promising method of possible clinical use seems to be a mul-tiparametric flow cytometry.
