CELL LOSS FROM EXPERIMENTAL TUMOURS

Abstract

The rate of loss of cells from a tumour may be estimated by measuring the cell production rate and comparing this with the rate at which cells are observed to be added to the tumour volume. An attractive method of measuring cell production rate is by the simultaneous measurement of a thymidine‐labelling index and the duration of the DNA synthetic period. A theoretical treatment of this method in exponential populations is given and the necessary assumptions are indicated. Estimates of cell loss have been made for a number of experimental tumours using available published data. It is shown that in some cases cell loss is an important, perhaps even dominant, factor determining tumour growth rate and the shape of tumour growth curves. Copyright © 1968, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved