[Clinically important antineoplastic agents and risks and limits of their use].

Since the introduction of the systematic development of cytostatic drugs at the beginning of the fifties ca. 1 million substances (natural products and synthetic ones) have undergone a screening and testing on continuously further developing biological systems. As a result nowadays more than ca. 20 cytostatic drugs of unequivocally proven value are at our disposal. According to their mechanism of action these preparations are subdivided into alkylantions, antimetabolites, antibiotics and substances of different efficacy. At present hormones as alternatives of the antineoplastic chemotherapy in carcinoma of the breast and the prostatic gland very dynamically develop. While cytostatic drugs in leukaemias, lymphomas, the chorionepithelioma as well as in the metastasizing carcinoma of the breast, the ovarial carcinoma and the small cell carcinoma of the lung nowadays render possible the prolongation of life, their final value is still to be clarified in other neoplastic diseases. At present the tumour chemotherapy experiences an extremely dynamic development. Hereby apart from after- and side-developments (analogues, derivatives) above all substances with principally new principle of action gain interest and importance (PALA, mitocentron, aminogluthetimide, interferon). The short-term and middle-term risks of antineoplastic drugs are relatively well known. Long-term investigations of side-effects of cytostatic drugs are still infrequent.