Rapid assessment of cell proliferation rate in human gliomas using a mini-unit method
详细信息 查看全文
文摘
Cell proliferation in normal tissue is regulated within the social context of the cell environment and is finely tuned to signalling mechanisms from neighbouring partners. However, malignant cells do not respond to these normal signalling mechanisms resulting in an uncontrolled proliferation. This fact is particularly critical in brain tumours, since these tumours grow in a cavity with rigid walls. Consequently, accurate and fast methods for the assessment of cell proliferation as well as the effect of therapeutic modalities are of significant interest with regard to brain tumours. On the basis of previous animal experiments on normal brain tissue (Alperin et al 1986), we have designed a method for in vitro assessment of human glioma cell proliferation. The procedure is based on the production of tumour tissue mini-units (<100 μm diameter) follow by incubation with radioactive thymidine and measurement of the radioactive thymidine incorporation. We have estimated the rate of glioma cell proliferation in 7 adult patients with supratentorial initial or recurrent gliomas, mainly of malignancy grade III-IV. The results indicate that 1) the mini-unit method is well suited for an accurate and fast perioperative assessment of tumour cell proliferation, 2) it holds promise for the evaluation of cytostatic drugs sensitivity and 3) it will make it possible to correlate cell grow kinetics with cell signalling and cell biochemistry patterns.