SOMATOSTATIN ANALOG RC-160 INHIBITS THE GROWTH OF TRANSPLANTED COLON CANCER IN RATS

The effect of somatostatin analogue RC-160 on the growth of DHD/K12 rat colon cancer has been investigated in vivo as well as in vitro. Twenty syngeneic BDIX rats with s.c. implanted tumors were divided randomly into 2 groups. The rats from each group received a daily s.c. injection of either RC-160 (100-mu-g/kg/day) or injection vehicle as control for 37 days starting from the day of tumor inoculation. Tumor volumes were measured every 3-4 days. At the end of the treatment, the mean tumor volume was 504.5 +/- 97.0 mm3 in the control group and 177.8 +/- 60.5 mm3 in the RC-160 treated group (p < 0.01). The tumor volume doubling time was calculated to be 11 days in the control group and 13.5 days in the RC-160 group, respectively. The tumor growth delay time was 18 days. Using bromodeoxyuridine labelling in vivo, the mean labelling index in the tumors was decreased by 35% (p < 0.01) after RC-160 treatment. Total protein and total DNA contents in the tumors were decreased by 70.1% (p < 0.05) and 68.7% (p < 0.05), respectively. The data indicate that somatostatin analogue RC-160 inhibits the growth of DHD/K12 colon cancer in vivo. In 2 studies in vitro, DHD/K12 cells were cultured for 72 hr with RC-160 and natural somatostatin-14 (S-S-14) at concentrations ranging from 62.5 ng/ml to 2,000 ng/ml. Tumor-cell growth was measured spectrophotometrically by the crystal violet staining assay. No direct effect on tumor cell growth in vitro was observed with either RC-160 or S-S-14, possibly because of the loss of somatostatin receptors in previous passages of the DHD/K12 cell line.