Growth of osteoid osteoma transplanted into athymic nude mice.

An osteoid osteoma, excised from the neck of the femur of a 23-year-old man, was cut into four 1.5 mm3 fragments and immediately transplanted into muscle pouches in athymic nude mice. One fragment was devitalized by lyophilization before implantation. The viable tumor cell xenografts grew, differentiated into uncalcified osteoid, and retained the characteristics of the original tumor. The killed implants were resorbed, but both the surviving viable and nonviable tumor tissue induced the connective tissue cells of the mouse host bed to proliferate and differentiate into normal cartilage and calcified bone. The mouse new bone deposits were remodeled and colonized by bone marrow, a tissue not seen in osteoid osteomas. These observations suggest that the sclerotic bone shell characteristic of osteoid osteomas may be an inductive reaction of host bed tissue to an osteoma cell product that is comparable to bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) produced by normal bone cells and transferred by normal bone matrix.