Role of Tissue Culture in Prediction of Malignancy

Abstract

It is now clear that tissue culture has a role to play in the prediction of the degree of malignancy of human brain tumors. The fact that virtually all human brain tumors grow at least for some interval in culture allows application of tissue culture to the study of all tumors. This almost universal culturability of tumors is truly a singular virtue of intracranial neoplasms. No other human solid tumor group has been so amenable to in vitro growth or study. Up to the present time, despite our experience with over 1100 human brain tumor cultures, we have been extremely conservative in altering patient management on the basis of in vitro data. As is now apparent, the basis for direct input into the clinical milieu exists and it is necessary to work on a patient by patient basis to see how well the existing criteria can be applied to help guide management. Indeed the emphasis given to tissue culture by Rubinstein already confirms the current interest in the applicability of tissue culture data to neuropathological study of tumors (48). Clearly for certain tumors which tend to be benign, tissue culture can serve to alert the clinician to the perhaps unexpected malignant potential of the lesion. For the malignant tumors, the degree of malignancy, the probable biological behavior, the role of host defense factors and therapeutic agents can all be more quantitatively defined for the individual patient by the detailed study of the patient's cultured cells. With improvement in the surgical treatment of benign tumors and with better chemotherapeutic and radiotherapeutic measures for malignant neoplasms this more detailed and precise characterization of tumor behavior has become increasingly relevant to the optimization of the clinical management of the brain tumor patient.