Boundaries between Promotion and Progression during Carcinogenesis

The pUrpOSE! of this conference was not to define the two areas that are being bound, which might be a well nigh impossible proposition. Rather, its focus was to concentrate on the mechanistic similarities between promotion and progression. Are the areas involved within the boundaries a continuum? Are these two simultaneous processes? Or are some of the affected cells in the stage of promotion when at the same time others have undergone irreversi ble changes tha. t position them in the stage of progression? Or are these two stages the same thing, but called by different names? To explore such concepts we assembled investigators with various back grounds and asked them to specifically address these and other questions about "The Boundaries", within the context of the session to which they con tributed. The conference lasted two and a half days, from Wednesday to Friday. There were at least four speakers per session with morning and after noon sessions each day, except on Friday when the meeting ended at noon. The first day, each speaker had 25 minutes to present a position, followed by five minutes of discussion. At the end of the session there were 40 or 50 minutes of exchange on all the issues examined. For the remaining days, there were 25 minutes of presentation and 15 minutes of discussion.