Enhancement by drugs of metastatic lung nodule formation after intravenous tumour cell injection

Abstract

In studies on a model of induced pulmonary metastasis in mice a tumour host system was analysed which was not affected by immunogenicity of the tumour for the host; neither intensive immunosuppression nor immunization caused a significant change in the quantity of pulmonary metastatic nodules. In contrast the application of cytostatic drugs and of Corynebacterium parvum could modify the pulmonary resistance to the formation of tumour nodules by a factor greater than 100 in either direction. This finding confirms the observation of others that major modification of the resistance to metastatic tumour formation can occur independently of classical immunological mechanisms. Special attention is drawn to the fact that cyclophosphamide enhances the formation of metastatic nodules in this model by factors of 100 to more than 1,000, whereas other cytostatic drugs including the cyclophosphamide congeners iphosphamide and trophosphamide are active only by factors between 2 and 12. The possible practical significance of these findings is discussed.