Twenty-three new human tumor lines established in nude mice

Subcutaneous inoculation of 87 human tumors into athymic nude mice, including gastrointestinal (non-colon) tumors, germ cell-primitive cell tumors, kidney tumors, lower urinary tract tumors, malignant melanomas and several metastases from unknown primary sites, resulted in growth in primary transplants in 32 cases (36.8%). Take rates varied among the tumor categories, from 56% for malignant melanomas to 13% for lower urinary tract tumors. They also differed among recurrent tumors (50%), metastases (41%) and tumors of primary site (28%). 23 tumor lines were established, including five lines each from renal cell adenocarcinomas and malignant melanomas, two each from adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and Wilms' tumors and only line each from various tumors of the gastrointestinal, germ cell-primitive cell, lower urinary tract and primary site unknown categories. The frequency of line establishment was greater for recurrent tumors and metastases than for primary tumors. Tumor lines have been carried continuously up to passage 17 in one case. Time in primary transplant varied from 3 to 29 weeks for the individual tumors and the average primary transplant time varied from 5.8 to 14.7 weeks for the six tumor categories. The average time in passage varied among the established lines from 2.3 to 10.6 weeks. The average passage time for all tumor lines was 5.3 weeks, with those of recurrent tumor origin showing the shortest average (4.0 weeks) followed by lines of metastatic origin (5.4 weeks) and those of primary tumor origin (5.8 weeks).