Endothelial-cell proliferation in experimental tumours.

The proliferation characteristics of vascular endothelium have been studied in 131 individual experimental tumours, representing 18 transplanted tumour lines. The labelling index (LI) is high in most tumours, with a mean value of 0.9%, regardless of the growth rate of the tumours, or whether different tumour types are considered or individual tumours from within one line are studied in detail. A similar high LI value has been found by others for a human tumour. These high LI values may even underestimate the proliferation in new capillary buds. The high proliferative index of tumour endothelium is in marked contrast with the previously reported low 3HTdR uptake into normal tissue blood vessels. It seems likely that it is the type of new vessels formed that will influence tumour growth rates more than the simple rate of endothelial-cell proliferation. The large difference between the proliferation characteristics of tumour endothelium and normal tissue endothelium, recently identified as a possible approach for tumour therapy, has now been confirmed for a range of animal tumours and a human tumour.