Blood transfusion and tumour growth: an experimental study

An animal model using RIII mice, which have a high incidence of spontaneously occurring mammary tumours, was used to study the effects of blood transfusion on tumour growth. Virgin female mice were transfused with various dilutions of blood from C57b1 mice either before or both before and after inoculation of tumour cells from a tumour line. Allogeneic transfusion prior to inoculation did not affect survival compared with syngeneic transfusion. Both allogeneic and syngeneic blood given before and after tumour inoculation led to a prolonged survival compared with saline infusion. Survival was longest following syngeneic blood. The effect was attributed to the general beneficial effects of blood transfusion and not the result of immunological changes.