Lung Tumor Assay

Abstract

Several screening assays are available that allow testing of suspected carcinogens within a reasonably short time, are reproducible from laboratory to laboratory and allow estimates of relative potency. In vitro systems with prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems are most widely used. However, they do not take into account the response of an intact organism challenged by a carcinogen. An attempt to deal with this problem was made by developing short-term in vivo systems such as skin tumor induction in mice, breast cancer induction in female Sprague-Dawley rats, and lung tumor induction in mice (1). In 1975, Shimkin and Stoner published an excellent and incisive review paper that describes in detail how development of lung tumors in strain A mice may be used as a screening bioassay. The procedure is simple, reproducible, quantitative, comparatively short, and appears to have correctly predicted or confirmed the carcinogenic potential of many compounds. However, the lung tumor test has, to date, not been used widely and practically all available information on its use as a screening bioassay has been developed in one laboratory (2). The assay deserves to be studied more extensively and to be fully validated.