[Sensitivity testing of chemotherapeutic agents for ovarian and breast cancers--possibilities and limits of different methods and of their application (author's transl)].

Well-defined and individualised chemotherapy of human malignant tumours can be initiated with the aid of sensitivity tests for chemotherapeutic agents prior to treatment. The effectiveness of the specific cytotoxic agent can be determined by sensitivity testing. For these investigations three methods are available at present: 1. a short-term incubation method (biochemical assay). 2. an agar-cloning assay as a specific tissue culture method and 3. a heterotransplantation method with transplantation of tumour cells into thymus-aplastic animals. For routine clinical testing only the biochemical short-time assay and the agar colony assay are of practical significance. The test rates and growth rates in the two methods are composed. The in-vitro and in-vivo correlations of sensitivity testing of chemotherapeutic agents and resistance to chemotherapeutic agents in the different test systems show that the accuracy of prediction for the correct positive or correct negative result is 90%. These results are based on retrospective analysis. For the evaluation of the different prediction assays and for the evaluation of the clinical application of these methods only a randomised prospective therapeutic study can give the answers. However, this has not yet been carried out to date.