Contemporary trends in in vivo and in vitro testing of chemical carcinogens.

摘要

In the sixties of the last century it was realized that many human cancers are caused by environmental carcinogens and that the best way how to reduce cancer is first to identify in environment chemical carcinogens and second to prevent people from being exposed to such carcinogens. Epidemiological studies are probably the only way to confirm human carcinogenesis, however, this approach is so retrospective that carcinogens can be identified only after many victims have appeared. Carcinogenicity testing in long-term, medium-term, and short-term studies is therefore the only way for the prospective identification of possible human carcinogens. End-points of interest in a carcinogenicity study are primarily preneoplastic and neoplastic changes, but also include degree of malignancy, time to tumor appearance, multiplicity of (pre)neoplasia, and occurence of metastases. Long-term bioassays are designed and conducted to detect all of these end-points. Medium-term bioassays are mainly based on the detection of putative preneoplastic lesions and short-term tests can provide very important information concerning genotoxic effects of studied compounds.