Establishment of carcinoma cell lines from larynx and submandibular gland.

For many techniques in the oncology of head and neck tumors large amounts of pure tumor cells are required. Although larynx and salivary gland tumors are common in man, no report exists on isolation and purification of tumor cells of which malignancy was proved. The present paper describes in vitro cultivation of living human malignant tumor cells from a larynx and a submandibular gland carcinoma. Carcinoma cells were freed from all non-tumor cells and cloned thus indicating that cultures contained only a single cell type. Transplantation of grown cells s.c. into athymic (nu/nu) mice induced rapidly growing tumors of which malignancy was demonstrated by histology.