Hjja. Bernsen et al., VASCULARITY AND PERFUSION OF HUMAN GLIOMAS XENOGRAFTED IN THE ATHYMICNUDE-MOUSE, British Journal of Cancer, 71(4), 1995, pp. 721-726
The vascularisation and perfusion of seven subcutaneously xenografted
human glioma lines established from surgical specimens has been analys
ed using an anti-collagen type IV antibody to visualise the vascular w
alls in combination with a perfusion marker (Hoechst 33342). A compute
r-based digital image processing system was employed for quantitative
analysis of the parameters. The vascular architecture of individual tu
mours belonging to the same tumour line showed a consistent similarity
, while substantial differences occurred between the various tumour li
nes derived from different patients. Despite the presence of a large i
nter-tumour variation in vascular area as a proportion of the tumour a
rea, this vascular parameter clearly showed tumour line-specific chara
cteristics. The perfused fraction of the tumour vessels also showed a
large inter-tumour variation for all tumour lines ranging from 20% to
85%, but the majority of tumours of all lines had perfusion fractions
of more than 55%. Despite large variation, the perfused vascular area
as a proportion of the tumour cross-sectional area exhibited clear tum
our line-specific tendencies. These observations suggest that consiste
nt differences in vascular parameters are present between glioma xenog
raft lines, although the tumour lines all originated from histological
ly similar human high-grade gliomas. These differences may have import
ant consequences for treatment and clinical behaviour of this type of
tumour.