Prostate cancer and other xenografts from cells in peripheral blood of patients

Good models for the investigation of human prostate cancer are few. Cells f rom approximately 9.2-21 ml of peripheral blood from patients with metastat ic prostate cancer or metastatic colon cancer were injected s.c. into nude mice. Prostate cancer from 2 of 11 patients and colon cancer from 1 of 3 pa tients were found to be growing as metastases in the lungs of the nude mice . To our knowledge, this is the first report of the formation of xenografts from carcinoma cells taken directly from the peripheral blood of patients. Expanding circulating cancer cells with this approach may have important t ranslational applications including: (a) development of models of human can cers; and (b) sampling of cancers from specific patients for novel molecula r and therapeutic approaches.