31st report: WHO TRS N°658: 1980

Overview

The WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization met in Geneva from 15 to 22 April 1980. The meeting was opened on behalf of the Director-General by Dr V. Fattorusso, Director, Division of Prophylactic, Diagnostic, and Therapeutic Substances. 

The committee has been unwilling for many years to set up biological standards for antibiotics used in the treatment of malignant tumours when the only known way of measuring their biological activity is a microbiological assay not involving mammalian cells, particularly for antitumour antibiotics that are complex mixtures of related biologically active compoents - e.g. bleomycin. However, with the development of analytical techniques that have allowed the composition of a given preparation to be measured precisely and the variability in composition of different batches to be maintained within acceptable limits, it was considered that an international reference material for bleomycin would serve a useful purpose. 

31st report: WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization

WHO TRS N°658 - part 1

WHO TRS N°658 - part 2