[Antitumor effect of human lactoferrin against newly established human pancreatic cancer cell line SPA].

This paper describes the antitumor effect of human lactoferrin against the human pancreatic cancer cell line SPA, which was newly established in our laboratory from a metastatic liver tumor of pancreatic origin. In tissue culture, the cancer cells proliferated rapidly at 16 hours of doubling time, and produced tumor markers into the culture medium at a high concentration. Subcutaneous and intraperitoneal transplantation of these neoplastic cells into nude mice resulted in tumor formation and carcinomatous peritonitis. The inhibitory effect of human lactoferrin on the cell growth of SPA was found both in vivo and in vitro. There was significant inhibition of cell growth in vivo at the concentration of 1 microgram/ml of hLf in the culture medium. And in the in vivo assay, hLf delayed the growth of subcutaneously transplanted tumors into BALB/c nude mice, and the effect was retained for two weeks. These results indicate the possibility that hLf will become one of the new drugs for adjuvant therapy against pancreatic cancer.