An approximation method for estimating cell loss from a growing tumor

Bromocriptine-induced pregnancies in women with large prolactinomas

Fourteen women with large prolactinomas experienced a total of nineteen bromocriptine-induced term pregnancies. None of the women had received prior pituitary tumour therapy. Post-partum sellar X-ray examinations showed signs of tumour enlargement in two women. Only one of them had clinical symptoms of tumour expansion with visual field defects during the pregnancy. The visual impairment improved when bromocriptine treatment was reinstituted and the pregnancy continued to term. The other twelve women had a total of seventeen uneventful pregnancies without symptoms or signs of pituitary tumour expansion. Thus, medical therapy with dopamine receptor agonists is the primary treatment for most infertile women with prolactinomas. The risk of serious pregnancy-induced tumour expansion is very small in properly investigated and carefully supervised patients with large PRL-secreting pituitary adenomas.

Kinetic analysis of a split cell population following reinoculation of an Ehrlich ascites tumor

When Ehrlich ascites cells from old tumors are inoculated into fresh hosts, their cell cycle parameters show several unusual features when studied by means of four independent techniques. These experiments measure: Labeling Index (LI); Mitotic Index (MI); Percent Labeled Mitosis (PLM); Percent of population mitotic and initially G0, (Mu/P). The minimum modifications of the standard cell-cycle model that allow simultaneous simulation of the four sets of data were then determined. These modifications are: (1) sudden shortening of transit time for the S state immediately following reinoculation; (2) a more gradual change in the transit time for M; (3) an orderly reentry of G0 cells into the beginning of the cycle; (4) a shorter first cycle for the reentering G0 cells along with a smaller coefficient of variation for the first cycle of the G0 cells. These changes allow a simultaneous simulation of the four experiments with a single parameter set. This was not achievable without the modifications. Hence, resolution of a cell population into two components allows one to account for additional kinetic features.