An infallible method for producing ascitic fluid from solid tumours

Notwithstanding all precautions, the methods usually applied for the transformation of solid tumours into the ascitic form, frequently fail. This must certainly be ascribed to the still existing, considerably high intercellular adhesion forces despite the fact that cancer cells generally show lack of adhesiveness due to their higher electrical charge in comparison with normal cells. Hagmar recently stipulated that particularly anionic detergents increase the negative surface charge of tumour cells, while cationic detergents drastically reduce or even reverse this charge. A series of comparative experiments were undertaken by us in order to study the influence of anionic, nonionic and amphoteric detergents on the production of ascitic fluid from macerates of Yoshida sarcoma and fibrosarcoma BUSP. This latter tumour was produced and maintained in our laboratory and resisted to all our attempts to produce the ascitic form. Heparin, in concentrations of 0,2, 0,4 and 1,0 mg/ml, was used as an example of an anionic detergent; Pluronic F-68 and phosphatidylcholine, both in concentrations of 1, 2, and 5 mg/ml, represent a nonionic and an amphoteric detergent, respectively. The obtained results clearly show a most favourable action of the applied surfactants: whereas the controls, in which the detergents were not applied, failed to produce ascitic fluid in, sometimes, considerable percentages (up to 100% in the case of BUSP) of the treated animals, not a single animal remained free of ascite when the injected macerate was pre-treated with the emulsifier. It should here be mentioned, however, that heparin in the highest concentration applied (1 mg/ml) caused lysis of the tumour cells impeding, thus, whatever formations of ascitic fluid.