Biocompatibility of wound management products: standardization of and determination of cell growth rate in L929 fibroblast cultures.

To facilitate the development of a bioassay procedure by which the biocompatibilities of materials used in wound management may be assessed and compared, those environmental factors affecting cell growth in mouse L929 fibroblast cultures have been identified. Standardization of the initial cell number and frequency of change of medium resulted in the virtual elimination of variation of growth curves of L929 cells cultured in flasks of specified surface area. In addition, three methods for assessing fibroblast growth rate in the presence of alginate products used in wound management were evaluated. These were the haemacytometer counting chamber method, the Coulter counting method, and a liquid scintillation counting method. The first two methods determine the number of cells in a given volume of a cell suspension, whereas the third method determines the rate of synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and hence cell growth, by measuring the incorporation of [3H]thymidine. The haemacytometer method had significant advantages over the other two procedures in providing both qualitative and quantitative data on culture morphology and cell growth response.