Primary Tumours in Animals

Abstract

The principles which are assumed to govern the behaviour of malignant cell populations have been derived both from cytological studies of experimental tumours passaged in vivo, and from cell-lines grown in vitro. The tumours used in these studies were transplanted for many generations so their cell populations became far removed from the original, and therefore could not be considered to be representative of tumours generally. In the following part, the chromosome constitution and behaviour of primary tumours will be considered and the findings compared with those obtained from investigations on experimental tumours.