In order to find a positive correlation between the development of sarcoma of the bone and preceding local traumatic injury, the right femur of dd-strain mice was fractured at the diaphysis, and 0.2mg of 20-methylcholanthrene (MC) was injected into the bone marrow or callus at the site of fracture. Various types of sarcoma of the bone developed after various latent periods (57-202 days). A positive sarcoma induction seemed to be related to the histological pattern of the callus at the time of MC-administration.
In the callus composed of already mature cells, no sarcoma developed, while the tumor was induced in 45.5% of animals with the callus of immature cells after a short latent period. It was assumed that this difference would be due to the different nature of cells composing callus: An active proliferating ability with evident susceptibility to certain carcinogens would be inherent to immature cells but not to mature cells. This would be one of the important factors, which must be taken into consideration in the interpretation of so-called traumatic sarcoma.