Tissue-Culture Studies of Human Oral Carcinoma II. Radiation Responses Comparing Patient Survival, Cytologic-Radiation Response, and in Vitro Growth Curves

¹ Schools of Dentistry and Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

Explants of intraoral squamous carcinomas from 17 patients were obtained prior to radiation therapy. Leighton tubes were inoculated and irradiated 24 hours later with dosages of 750 and 2,000 r. Proliferative capacities up to 8 days in vivo, exfoliative cytology-radiation response counts, and in vitro morphologic changes could not be correlated with varying patient responses and survivals.

Altering some of the many variables in this system must be attempted before completely discarding this technique as a potential assay method for tumor radiosensitivity.