Growth of HeLa Cells in Diffusion Chamber Cultures in V/vo

In order to investigate some characterist ics of Mil l ipore diffusion chamber cultures (DCC) and their potential for the quantitation of tumor cell growth kinetics, HeLa S-3-cells were grown in diffusion chambers implanted i.p. in mice. HeLa cells grew pseudologari thmical ly in DCC with a populat ion-doubl ing time of approximately 2.8 days when 9.2 to 12.0 • 105 cel ls were placed in the chambers initially. The populat ion-doubl ing time varied as a function of the initial inocula size but was always longer than the in vi tro populat ion-doubl ing t ime of 1.2 days. Comparable harvests of cells from exper iment to experiment varied quantitatively by no more than a factor of 1.8. This variation somewhat l imits the use of DCC for the quantitation of subtle effects. The fate and morphology of HeLa cells in DCC were determined from scanning electron microscopy. DCC might be exploited in clinical studies of the growth of patients' tumors and the effects of various therapies in a host-mediated system.