Growth and vascular structure of human melanoma xenografts

The growth and the vascular structure of five human melanomas grown in athymic nude mice were studied. Four growth parameters (tumour volume doubling time, fraction of cells in S-phase, growth fraction, cell-loss factor) were analysed against each of four vascular parameters (length of vessels with diameters in the range 5-15 micron, total vessel length, total vessel surface, total vessel volume--all per unit of histologically intact tumour volume). Statistically significant linear correlations between the parameters were found for any of the combinations. However, there was a consistent trend in the data: the tumour volume doubling time and the cell-loss factor tended to decrease while the fraction of cells in S-phase and the growth fraction tended to increase with increasing vascular density, whichever vascular parameter was considered. This finding indicates that the vascular density is among the factors which are decisive for the growth rate of tumours. However, the present work does not exclude the possibility that intrinsic properties of the tumour cells may also be important.