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Thirty-four patients with locally advanced or metastatic esophageal cancer were treated with cisplatin 35 mg/m2/day x 3 days in bolus, plus bleomycin 15 mg/day x 3 days, as an 18 h infusion, every 21-28 days. Twenty-nine are evaluable for response. Objective response was seen in 15 (52%, 95% confidence limits 35-69%) patients. Toxicity was mild. Twelve patients with locoregional disease were treated with this combination followed by radiotherapy and three of them are alive without disease at 18, 22 and 36 months. This combination warrants further study in the setting of combined treatment.

The protocole of multidisciplinary therapy of the tongue and base of the tongue tumors in the "Hospital de la Sta. Creu i Sant Pau" is presented. The exposition of the management trends by surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, in our protocole, is followed by the review of the therapeutic indications with special enphasis in the topographic ones in order to plan the surgical treatment. The non advanced tumors will be as well treated by intersticial radiotherapy as by surgery. In the treatment of the advanced tumors the multidisciplinary managament results essential. Depending on the degree of invasion, the topography of the tumor and the outline of therapeutic trials, the therapy will be chosen.

A combination of hormonal therapy and chemotherapy (diethyl-estilbestrol or orchiectomy plus cyclophosphamide) was administered to 14 patients with histologic proof of untreated stage D prostatic adenocarcinoma with poor prognosis. Objective responses were obtained in 11 out of the 14 patients (78%), two of which were considered as complete regressions (14%). Response duration lasted for a mean of 9.5 months and the survival reached a mean of 14 months. The authors feel that is worth-while to treat very advanced cases of prostatic carcinoma with hormonal therapy and chemotherapy association.

Assessment of the accuracy of diagnostic procedures is made independent of diagnostic criteria by means of a receiver-operating-characteristics (ROC) curve. We performed ROC analysis for the major serum antiproteases: alpha-1-antitrypsin (A1AT) and alpha-2-macroglobulin (A2M), in 99 cancer patients compared with 71 normal individuals. A1AT and A2M were significantly higher in cancer patients (p less than 0.0005). By comparing true positive and false positive rates for different serum levels, ROC analysis showed that serum A1AT quantification seems more useful in clinical practice than serum A2M.