The influence of the ambient temperature on tumour growth, metastasis and survival in mice.

The effect of ambient temperature was analysed on the behaviour of MO4 cells which are malignant, invasive and metastasizing C3H mouse fibroblastic cells when implanted in the tail of the syngeneic animal. Raising the ambient temperature to 28 degrees C increases growth of the primary tumour, incidence of metastases and shortens survival. Lowering the ambient temperature to 13 degrees C prevents all these phenomena. Measurements at the implantation site show that the temperature of the tail remains in a range +/- 2-3 degrees C in accordance with the environment. From these results we conclude that room temperature may be important when experiments are performed in vivo.