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According to the analysis results of the longterm treatment experience of more than 800 patients with osteosarcomas the authors began to perform the new record of the osteosarcoma treatment, the basic aims of which are the increase of the number of patients with promunced medicinal pathomorphism at the expence of more intensive preoperative chemotherapy. After chemotherapy intensification the incidence of side effects increases. The data on the osteosarcoma pathogenesis with the sexual steroid hormones are obtained. It is emphasized that the immediate and remote results of the extremity osteosarcoma treatment can be achieved only in the highly specialized centers provided with current diagnosis methods, treatment monitoring and supporting therapy measures.

Results of a prospective randomized clinical trial conducted by the WHO Collaborating Centers for the Evaluation of Methods of Diagnosis and Treatment of Melanoma are reported. Five-hundred-fifty-three Stage I patients whose limbs were affected entered the study; 267 were submitted to wide excision and immediate node dissection and 286 had wide excision and node dissection at the time clinically positive nodes were detected. Survival curves of the two treatment groups could be superimposed. No subsets of patients benefitted from immediate node dissection. The authors conclude that delayed node dissection is as effective as the immediate dissection in Stage I melanoma of the extremities if the patient can be checked every three months. If the quarterly follow-up is not guaranteed, immediate node dissection is advisable, at least for melanomas thicker than 2 mm.

Homovanillic acid (HVA) was determined both in 45 patients with different forms of melanoma and those hospitalized on the suspicion of melanoma and in 15 healthy persons. Excretion rate of homovanillic acid within the normal limits was observed in patients with benign melanotic neoplasms of the skin (4.4 +/- 0.56 mg/24 hr) and in local forms of melanotic melanoma of the skin (4.5 +/- 0.24 mg/24 hr). In patients with metastases to regional nodes as well as in patients with locally disseminated forms of melanotic melanoma of the skin the concentration of homovanillic acid increased up to 11.1 +/- 0.93 mg/24 hr. Especially strong concentration of homovanillic acid was registered in patients with disseminated malanotic melanoma of the skin, and it made up 15.7 +/- 2.04 mg/24 hr. There was evident tendency to the elevation of HVA excretion level as generalization of the process which was taking place. The data obtained enable the authors to recommend the determination of HVA excretion as an additional diagnostic test as well for prognosis of melanoma development together with other clinicomorphological data.