A survey of in vivo growth characteristics and spontaneous metastasizing potentials of C3H mouse mammary tumors.

This investigation examined the relationship between spontaneous metastasizing potential, immunogenicity and growth rate in 34 C3H/He mammary carcinomas. The main purpose of our studies was to examine the hypothesis that a tumor's metastasizing potential is affected by its immunogenicity. The tumors were studied during serial intra-mammary transplantations, starting with tissue from autochthonous, spontaneous pulmonary metastases. The results show that there was no correlation between metastasizing potential and tumor immunogenicity, and no correlation between metastasizing potential and tumor growth rate. Moreover, metastasizing potential was not related to invasive behavior, because histological examination showed that all of the metastases grew extensively within pulmonary vessels and displayed no tendency to active extravasation.