A new tool for experimental tumour research

Surgical resected tumours are often stored for hours in the clinic upon transfer to the bench leading to apoptosis of tumour cells making them no longer suitable for molecular analysis and diagnostic procedures. The way out of this problem may be a new oxygen-enriched solution (OES). We tested this agent using surgical resections of carcinomas of lung, rectum and pancreas. Immediately after resection, one part of each individual tumour was stored in PBS and the other part in OES, and the content of viable or dead cells was determined by trypan blue exclusion and MTT-assay. We found that OES keeps tumour cells up to 3 days and longer more viable than PBS and reduces the percentage of dead cells without inducing therapy resistance and affecting the outcome of experimental procedures. Thus, storing freshly resected tumours in OES may save time for tumour transfer and initiation of experiments.