The growth characteristics of the metastatic Wistar/Furth Wilms' tumor model.

Growth characteristics, metastatic spread, and survival times were evaluated in a transplantable Wistar/Furth rat Wilms' tumor model. Tumor suspensions of various tumor cell dosages were injected in an attempt to find the optimum level of tumor take. Lung metastases were frequent following tumor injection by all routes. However, tumor spread to the lungs was the least frequent following subcutaneous (SC) injection of the tumor. Survival time for the intramuscular (IM) group was statistically longer at all tumor dose levels. For the 1 X 10(5) tumor dosage, survival time ranged from a mean of 27 days for the intrarenal (IR) group to a mean 42 days for the IM group. For the 1 X 10(4) dosage, survival time ranged from a mean of 37 days for the intraperitoneal (IP) group to a mean of 51 days for the IM group. It is concluded that this animal tumor closely resembles the human Wilms' tumor, and that the point at which the transplanted tumor fails to be successfully transplanted is below the dosage level of 1 X 10(3) tumor cells.