The biology of testicular cancer. I. Behavior after transplantation.

This study is concerned with the behavior after transplantation of eleven human testicular cancers heterografted to the hamster cheek pouch. It was undertaken in an effort to establish an adequate supply of uniform and predictable tumor cells upon which investigations could be made into the biology of testicular cancer. Several reports are available concerning the be havior after heterotransplantation of a broad spec trum of human neoplasms. It is difficult to com pare the degree of success achieved by the various investigators, because each used methodology that best suited his own objectives. Sommers, Chute, and Warren (9) heterografted 75 human cancers into x-radiated rats and found that 40 of these grafts survived on the 8th day. In a second experi ment they found that 30 of 65 human tumors sur vived in the hamster cheek pouch, but none could be maintained beyond the third generation (2). Toolan (10, 11) selected only the most rapidly proliferating of her heterograftable human tumors for experiments in the chemotherapy of cancer. Only 3 per cent of over 1,000 tumors heterotransplanted to x-radiated and/or cortisone-treated rats met her requirements (12). Greene (4) successfully heterografted three of seven testicular cancers (two embryonal carcinomas and one choriocarcinoma) to the anterior chamber of the guinea pig's eye. He developed no permanently hetero-