Initiation and promotion at different ages and doses in 2200 mice. III. Linear extrapolation from high doses may underestimate low-dose tumour risks.

The dose-response relationships from the data described in Paper I were analysed. Among unpromoted animals, only doses sufficient to cause ulceration with subsequent promotion due to wound healing caused a rapid crop of tumours, so the dose-response curve exhibited strong upward curvature. Among promoted animals, the response of the skin to initiation appeared to have been nearly saturated by all DMBA doses tested, so that a 30-fold decrease in dose produced only a 3-fold decrease in effect. The dose-response relationship thus exhibited strong downward curvature. Among promoted animals, estimation of the risks associated with very low doses of carcinogen by linear extrapolation through the origin from the effects of larger doses (which is often assumed to be conservative) would under-estimate the true risks by 10-fold or more. Our results emphasize that whereas linear interpolation from the results of high doses may be reasonable for data on the effects of continuous treatment with non-toxic dose levels of carcinogen, it may be misleading when extrapolating, as here, from the effects of single large doses

Initiation and promotion at different ages and doses in 2200 mice. I. Methods, and the apparent persistence of initiated cells.

Delay between initiation and promotion on mouse skin was in 1949 reported by Berenblum and Shubik not to affect tumour yields, and this led to the important concept of the irreversibility of initiation and stimulated the development of multistage models. Subsequent reports have, however, suggested that delay does decrease tumour yields, and this is confirmed by the present study of 2200 mice initiated at 8, 48, or 68 weeks with 10, 30, 100, or 300 microgram of DMBA and promoted by a standard dose of TPA for 15 weeks, after various delays. However, our data suggest that the decrease in tumour yields is chiefly or wholly due to a reduction, among ageing mice, of the ability to respond to promoters, and not to any substantial loss of initiated cells, for late initiation with immediate promotion also yielded a less rapid response than early initiation with immediate promotion. Interpretation of all such studies is complicated by the few weeks that the skin needs to repair ulceration and other damage induced by the higher doses of DMBA, for if promotion with TPA begins before such repair is complete the tumour yield may be misleadingly increased

Size, shape, structure, and direction of angiogenesis in laryngeal tumour development

Aims: Angiogenesis and vessel organisation in laryngeal tumour development and progression were examined to determine characteristics of biological and clinical relevance. Methods: Automated quantitative image analysis was performed on 1451 factor VIII (FVIII) associated blood vessels with regard to occurrence, structure, size, shape, and staining intensity, in addition to vessel direction. Results: Vessel numbers were increased in preneoplastic states and severe dysplasia, in addition to squamous cell carcinomas, being greater in poorly differentiated carcinomas. Small regular vessels predominated in benign conditions and large, irregular vessels in malignant neoplasms. Vessel distribution was related to degree of differentiation in squamous cell carcinomas, with circumferential angiogenesis occurring in well differentiated neoplasms, directional angiogenesis in moderately differentiated tumours, and aberrant angiogenesis in less well differentiated neoplasms. Alterations in vessel shape increased significantly with increasing degree of malignancy. Comparing the characteristics of individual vessels showed vessel shape abnormalities and the intensity of FVIII staining to increase with vessel size. Conclusions: Increased angiogenesis was an early event in laryngeal tumour development, with vessel structure, size, and shape related to the tumour growth pattern and behaviour

Initiation and promotion at different ages and doses in 2200 mice. II. Decrease in promotion by TPA with ageing.

Using the data described in Paper I, we compare the effects of the same treatment timings and doses given at different ages. Initiation with DMBA at 68 weeks of age, followed 3 weeks later by TPA, has a significantly (P less than 0.0001) less rapid effect on subsequent tumour incidence than does initiation at 8 or at 48 weeks of age, followed 3 weeks later by TPA. We suggested that this is chiefly due not to changes in the numbers of cells initiated by DMBA, but rather to a decrease in the promotional efficacy of TPA in ageing mice