American Journal of Cancer 

About: American Journal of Cancer is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Cancer & Sarcoma. It has an ISSN identifier of 1175-6357. Over the lifetime, 1268 publications have been published receiving 23176 citations.

The Maintenance of Human Normal Cells and Tumor Cells in Continuous Culture: I. Preliminary Report: Cultivation of Mesoblastic Tumors and Normal Tissue and Notes on Methods of Cultivation

Abstract: In this communication we shall endeavor to present a description of some of the methods that we have used in establishing strains of human normal and tumor cells, and an account of some of our results. We believe that the value of this report lies not in the presentation of new and unique methods for maintaining tissue cultures under continuous cultivation, but in presenting evidence that very different methods and media can be used to obtain approximately the same end-results. This holds true, however, only when the highly important factor of experience in the management of tissue cultures is used to best advantage. The opinion of many workers that human tissue cultures are difficult to maintain is not justified. Just as much time and energy are involved in the maintenance of a rapidly growing rat sarcoma as in the maintenance of a similar human tumor. In this laboratory, by the large lying-drop slide method, we have maintained the Walker rat sarcoma 338 for a period of over four years and a half, and a human chondromyxosarcoma (Table IV) for approximately the same length of time. Strains of cells from these tumors are still under cultivation. The advantage of knowing that many different types of human tumor cells can be maintained under continuous cultivation for long periods of time may not on first mention become apparent to many. When, however, one considers their use and their importance in collecting radiosensitivity data for specific cell types, and in the study of their cytological, cultural, and metabolic activities, the value of such knowledge is readily appreciated. The concept that pure cultures of human tumor cells can be used as sources of living antigen for immunological and therapeutic purposes must not be overlooked. We are inclined to consider this aim as of greater significance than any of the others.

The Peripheral Manifestations of the Specific Nerve Sheath Tumor (Neurilemoma)

Abstract: Introduction It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the clinical and pathological facts which have accumulated about the specific peripheral nerve sheath tumors. It has seemed worth while to do this because, although a great deal is known about this specific tumor type when it is found attached to the spinal nerve roots and to the intracranial portions of the cranial nerves, its appearance elsewhere in the body has not been studied in a comprehensive fashion. A great many articles have been written about individual tumors or small groups of them, but this information has not been synthesized. The impression exists that they are rare, but it seems as if this must be simply because they frequently go unrecognized. When it is realized that 52 tumors in 50 new cases are being reported in this paper, and that only 194 adequately described additional cases could be collected from the literature of the past hundred years, the cogency of this statement will be appreciated.

Significance of Increased Phosphatase Activity of Bone at the Site of Osteoplastic Metastases Secondary to Carcinoma of the Prostate Gland

Abstract: Recent determinations of serum phosphatase activity in patients with cancer (1, 2, 3) suggest that values obtained in cases with widespread osteoplastic metastases are, in general, significantly higher than those found in association with osteolytic metastases. In the series reported by Gutman, Tyson and Gutman (1), for example, the serum phosphatase activity exceeded 10 Bodansky units per 100 c.c. in 6 of 10 cases with osteoplastic metastases but in only 3 of 19 patients with osteolytic metastases. In 2 patients with very extensive osteoplastic skeletal lesions, values exceeding 100 Bodansky units per 100 c.c. of serum were obtained, as contrasted with the normal maximum of 4.0 Bodansky units. It has been assumed (1, 3) that the rise in phosphatase activity of the serum in such cases is the result of increased elaboration of phosphatase, which is subsequently released into the circulating fluids. Direct evidence in support of this assumption is afforded by the present investigation, which disclosed strikingly increased phosphatase activity of bone at the site of osteoplastic skeletal metastases in a patient with carcinoma of the prostate gland.

Structural Development in Gliomas

Abstract: In a morphological study of tumors the purely cytological characteristics, the neoplastic structures formed by the tumor cells, the gross aspects of growth and extension of the tumor, the stages of architectural and cellular development may each be especially considered. Most tumors are classified by their structural characteristics; thus one speaks of adenocarcinoma, scirrhous carcinoma, alveolar carcinoma, etc. Gliomas, on the contrary, since the work of Bailey and Cushing (2), are classified essentially on the basis of cytologic or even histogenetic characteristics. Recently investigators have become interested in the study of the developmental stages of neoplastic structures and the laws regulating their evolution. Ewing (8) has insisted upon the importance of studying “developmental stages, variations in structures, age, rate of growth and local reactions” in tumors. W. Fischer and his pupils have presented, for the first time, a series of investigations on the laws governing structural development in certain adenocarcinomas (3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 19). For several years we have made a systematic study of the structural evolution of the gliomas (22, 23, 24, 25, 26). This group of tumors, because of the enormous structural variability found even in a single neoplasm, presents a fascinating problem. Our research has had a double purpose: first, to analyze the laws governing structural development in gliomas; second, to attempt the application of these rules of growth to tumors in general. Because gliomas grow in an organ in which the tissue structures are both variable and highly differentiated, they are especially favorable for a study of the influence of preexisting structures on the architectural evolution of the tumor.