Tests were performed to study the angiogenic activity in samples of pleural fluid, ascites and cerebrospinal fluid, in patients with solid tumors and non-neoplastic diseases such as cerebrovascular accidents, cirrhosis, and congestive heart failure. The measurement of the angiogenic activity was carried out on chorioallantoid chick embryo membrane. The cerebrospinal fluid showed angiogenic activity in patients with primitive tumors of the central nervous system and also in cases where the tumor had extended into other organs. The cerebrospinal fluid of controls without tumor revealed angiogenic activity in 28% of the cases. There was a direct correlation between positive assays and age. Sixty-two percent of the samples of ascites from cancer patients were positive. Only 25% of the controls were positive. Only 10% of the pleural fluid from cancer patients was negative, and 75% of the control samples were negative.
Cancer 52:1365-1368, 1983.
T IS WELL KNOWN that solid tumors, tumor extracts, I and aqueous tumor in patients with ocular tumors, give rise to angiogenic A substance with a similar angiogenic ability has also been shown to exist in synovial fluid in patients with degenerative and inflammatory di~eases.~ Angiogenic capacity is due to a protein with an apparent molecular weight of less than 100,000 daltons, that stimulates endoletial cells to proliferate. This has been termed tumoral angiogenic factor (TAF).8.9 Substances with an aproximate molecular weight of 200 daltons, obtained by fractionation of the 100,000 daltons component of a tumor extract or culture fluids, are also shown angiogenic capacity. '().' I
This work was undertaken to study the angiogenic capacity in samples of pleural fluid (PF), ascitic fluid (AF), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), from patients with neoplasms, degenerative hepatic disease and other controls. We have used vascular proliferation in the chorioallantoid membrane of chick embryo (CAM), as on experimental assay for angiogenic activity, as previously