In vitro chemosensitivity of human lung cancer for vindesine.

Firstly, the effect of Vindesine was studied on four different human lung carcinoma cell lines (two small cell, one adeno and one squamous cell) with the Fast Green dye exclusion assay (FGA) and the clonogenic assay. Both methods demonstrate a clear dose response relationship and the estimated drug efficacy is similar for both assays. In the cell lines with the longest doubling time a plateau was reached in the FGA, most probably due to the short culture time in this assay. Secondly, the effect of Vindesine on human lung carcinoma specimens (n = 64), mainly bronchoscopy biopsies (n = 48), was evaluated with the FGA. The FGA has merits as predictive test in the clinic in the situation that only a small number of cells can be obtained. In this study, due to the high number of bronchoscopy biopsies only in a minority of cases a conclusion could be obtained (37.5%).