THE CLINICAL-APPLICATION OF AN ATP ASSAY TO PREDICT THE CHEMOSENSITIVITY OF GASTRIC-CANCER

The chemosensitivity of human xenografts in nude mice and fresh surgic al specimens of gastric cancer was evaluated in vitro using the ATP as say and the MTT assay. The in vitro sensitivity of 6 human xenografts was detected by the ATP assay and compared with the in vivo sensitivit y of the xenografts in nude mouse. The assay showed a 56.3% true-posit ive rate and a 85.7% true-negative rate, with 90.0% sensitivity and 46 .2% specificity. When 10 surgical specimens obtained from gastric canc er patients were divided into two groups and sensitivities assessed by the ATP and the MTT assays, the overall correlation of both assays wa s 81.3%. The ATP assay might be useful in evaluating the chemosensitiv ity of human gastric carcinomas.