Long-term passage results of glioma cells and their cell kinetics.

The history of brain tumor cultures is old. Established cell lines of brain tumors have increased in recent years, but reports concerning the results of these cultures are few. The results of cultures of gliomas (103 cases of astrocytoma, 9 of ependymoma, 2 of oligodendroglioma and others) obtained from 117 patients treated at our department between 1979 and 1993 were evaluated. The morphological characteristic of these glioma cells were studied, and their cellular kinetics were investigated by flow cytometry. Except for 5 cases, all tumors grew on the flask in the primary cultures, indicating that gliomas were readily cultured. Differences in morphological characteristics and cellular kinetics were not observed in cultures which had been maintained for more than 6 months in astrocytomas of grades II, III, and IV. Cells lines were successively established in 3 cases of glioblastoma and 2 of ependymoma. The results of FCM revealed that those cells which grew well on cultures had high proliferative indices.