Human Prostatic Carcinoma in Tissue Culture: Differentiation Parameters and Patient Prognosis

The prognosis of prostatic carcinoma is still very difficult to predict in the early stages of the disease, since even low grade and low stage tumors may sometimes progress rapidly toward metastasis. In order to find new insights that may be useful for prognosis, we started a study on human pros ta tic carcinoma in tissue culture. Our previous work correlating in vitro parameters with histological diagnosis of the same tumors (M. Bologna et al., Eur. Ural., 11, 330-333) has been extended with more cases and completed with the follow up of the patients. In the original study, 2 surJical specimens of prostatic carcinoma (7 Grade-I, 10 grade-II, 6 grade-III and 1 grade IV) were cultured in DME supplemented with 10% FCS, 10% HS and 50 ng/ml each of hydrocortisone and insulin. Epithelial cells grown from the explants had an average life in culture and morphological and biochemical features in good correlation with the grade of the tumor. Short cultural life span, regular growth and positive secretion activity were typical of low grade tumors, meanwhile the opposite was true for high grade tumors. Of these patients, 2 grade I (29%) died 3 yrs after diagnosis; 6 grade II tumors (60%) died after 1-4 yrs; 6 grade III and 1 grade IV (100%) died in 0.5-3 yrs. The data we collected seem to indicate that the low grade tumors susceptible of the poorer prognosis can be identified by a short term tissue culture. This method can be used in parallel with specific hormone-sensitivity tests for each tumor and may therefore be useful both for prognosis and therapy of each patient.