The chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane as an in vivo experimental model to study human neuroblastoma.

The chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) has long been a favored system for the study of tumor angiogenesis because at the stage of development when generally tumor grafts are placed (6-10 days of incubation), the chick's immunocompetent system is not fully developed and the conditions for rejection have not yet been established. All studies for mammalian neoplasms, including neuroblastoma, have used tumor cell lines, tumor bioptic specimens, cell suspensions derived from tumors, and mouse tumor xenografts bioptic specimens. CAM can also be used to study the effects of antiangiogenic molecules on tumor cell suspensions of tumor bioptic specimens. This review article summarizes and discusses the literature data on the use of the CAM as an in vivo experimental model to study human neuroblastoma.