A FUNDAMENTAL STUDY OF RENAL CELL CARCINOMA PART1. IN VITRO LONG-TERM CELL CULTURES OF RENAL CELL CARCINOMAS

During the past 2 years, cancerous tissues surgically removed from the patients with renal cell carcinoma had been submitted to in vitro cell cultures for the purpose of obtaining established human renal cell carcinoma cell lines. Tissue fragments were trypsinized into single cell suspension and resuspended in culture medium of RPMI 1640 argumented with inactivated fetal calf serum (20%), penicillin (100 U/ml) and streptomycin (100 µg/ml). Incubation was carried out with humidified air with 5% CO2 at 37°C. Out of fifteen renal cell carcinomas, epithelial cell growth were observed in ten cases. However long-term maintenance of these monolayers were achieved only in two cases, over a period of 10 months and 8 months -respectively. The cytological, biochemical identification of these cells is currently in progress