A method for directly establishing short-term cultures of human gestational choriocarcinoma in vitro

A procedure is described which offers a method for establishing, without recourse to a serial passage within animal hosts, short-term cultures of human gestational choriocarcinoma in vitro. The method involves the use of either post mortem or surgical biopsy tissue from patients with known choriocarcinomas. The tissues are subsequently sectioned on a freezing microtome and viable tumour selected for explantation in vitro. Radioimmuno assays of culture media supernatant confirm the trophoblastic nature of the cells growing in vitro, cytogenetic analyses of these cultures reveal several aneuploid modes.