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MEDICAL RECORD
AN INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY
Founded 1843
Vol. 163,
No.7 JULY, 1950 Whole
No.2809
THE UNITARIAN OR
TROPHOBLASTIC
THESIS OF CANCER
by Ernst T. Krebs, Jr.,* Ernst T. Krebs,
Sr.,**
and Howard H. Beard***
(Reprinted From the Medical Record,
163:149-174, July 1950)
It is
veritably impossible to find, among the
hundreds of valid experimental contributions
to our knowledge of cancer made during the
past half century, an experimentally
established datum that would controvert the
thesis of the basic biological uniformity
characterizing all exhibitions of cancer.
THE CRITERIA OF
UNIFORMITY
To the
experimentalist who does not overtly accept
an unitarian thesis of cancer, such a thesis
is still implicit in the commonplace facts
of his science. The classic experiments of
Warburg on the respiratory pattern of
cancers of various species and tissue
origins reveal a high uniformity from tumor
to tumor.1 Correlatively, the Coris find the
lactic acid andsugar content of the various
exhibitions of cancer to be highly uniform.2
Williams and his co-workers report a
pronounced degree of uniformity in the
concentration of eight B vitamins in a great
variety of animal and human tumors,
regardless of the tissue of origin or the
manner of their induction.3 Robertson makes
similar observations for vitamin C.4 The
addition of various substrates to malignant
tumors of various types yields highly
uniform respiratory responses.5 Shack
describes analmost complete uniformity in
cytochrome oxidase content in a number of
mouse tumors. 6 Greenstein finds that the
presence of any exhibition of cancer
uniformly results in a depression of the
liver catalase. 7,8 Maver and Barrett
describesubstantial evidence for an
immunological uniformity among malignant
tumors.9 Greenstein reports an impressive
degree of uniformity in enzyme concentration
among malignant tissues, regardless of their
means of induction, tissue of origin or
species of origin. 10 Others describe a
uniformly low content of such aerobic
catealytic systems as cytochrome, succinic,
and d-amino acid oxidases, cytochrome-c,
catalase and flavin.11,12,13,14,15,16,17
Further
phenomena of uniformity are observed in the
elevated water and cholesterol content of
malignant tumors as well as other primitive
tissues.18,19 The induction by a single
steroid carcinogen, such as
methylcholanthrene, of malignant exhibitions
as diverse as leukemia and malignant
melanoma, attests to a basically uniform
etiology. The uniformity of
variousexhibitions of cancer in respiratory
properties, lactic acid production, vitamin
content, enzyme content, action on a given
substrate, effect on liver catalase,
cytochrome oxidase content immunological
properties, and many other characteristics
is correlative to an uniformity of
------
*We wish to acknowledge the helpful
suggestions and criticisms on the
trophoblastic thesis from Clifford L.
Bartlett, M.D., Pasadena, California; John
Bodman, M.D., London, England; and Arthur
Harris, M.D., North Hollywood, California.
**John Beard
Memorial Foundation, 642 Capp Street, San
Francisco, California
***Cancer Clinic, Holy Cross Hospital,
Chicago, Illinois.
[Page 150..of Annual
Collection]
malignant
tumors in the ability to metastasize, in
their amenability to heterotransplantability,
21, 22 and in their autonomy, invasiveness
and erosiveness. Indeed, there is no known
basic property unique to any single
exhibition of cancer---the only variation
being a morphological one partially
conditioned by admixed benign or somatic
components.
The degree in
the uniformity of the factors described
increases with the increasing malignancy
with which the tumor is exhibited. Thus with
an increasing degree of malignancy, all
malignant exhibitions converge toward a
common tissue type. For this reason the
cells of the most malignant of all
exhibitions of cancer should epitomize the
properties of the malignant component in all
other exhibitions of cancer. That this is
the case, we shall observe in the pages that
follow.
We have
glanced briefly at data that are commonplace
to cancer research. The logical consequences
of these data have, however, seldom been
examined. Since the phenomenon of cancer is
truly an unitarian one, then, of logical
necessity, the variations in the biological
malignancy of different exhibitions of
cancer must be a function of the
concentration of a cell of an intrinsically
uniform malignancy.
POSITION OF THE CANCER
CELL
IN THE LIFE-CYCLE
In accounting
for the nature and origin of the single cell
type comprising the constant malignant
component in the varying morphological
exhibitions of cancer, we find one of two
alternatives open. The definitively
malignant cell either has its normal
counterpart in the life-cycle or the
malignant cell is without a normal cellular
counterpart and, therefore, arises as a
spontaneous generation. Since spontaneous
generation is an untenable postulate, the
only alternative is that the malignant cell
has its counterpart in the life-cycle. The
question then arises whether this
counterpart is a relatively developed cell
or the most primitive cell in the
life-cycle. Since the primitivity of the
cancer cell is a commonplace, in looking for
its cellular counterpart in the life-cycle
we turn to the most primitive cell in this
cycle. This is the trophoblast cell. Then as
a logical corollary of the unitarian thesis,
we should find the trophoblast as the
constant malignant component in all
exhibitions of cancer: the malignancy of the
cancer varying directly with its
concentration of trophoblast cells and
inversely with its concentration of somatic
cells.
If the
unitarian thesis is valid, then the most
malignant exhibition of cancer possible
should be comprised almost completely of
frank trophoblast cells; and, in being so
comprised, should epitomize the cellular and
other phenomena shared by exhibitions of a
lesser malignancy. The most highly malignant
exhibitions of cancer known are the
chorionepitheliomascomprised of frank
trophoblast cells, cytologically,
endocrinologically and otherwise
indistinguishable from normal pregnancy
trophoblast cells. If cancer is an unitarian
phenomenon whose malignancy is a function of
the concentration of trophoblast cells
within a given tissue, then the greater the
concentration of such cells within a tissue
the higher the malignancy
[Page 151]
of the tissue
and the more profound its cytological
deviation from the cytology normal to the
tissue. If the unitarian thesis is valid,
then the single exception to this
generalization would comprise the most
malignant of all exhibitions of cancer: that
involving the pathologic exhibition of the
normally or "physiologically" malignant
pregnancy trophoblast. It is, therefore,
most significant that when pregnancy
trophoblast is malignantly exhibited as
primary uterine chorionepithelioma there is
no ascertainable cytological,
endocrinological or other intrinsic change
whatever from the normal trophoblast cell.
As Boyd has phrased it, "microscopically the
chorionepithelioma is an exaggeration of the
condition normally found in pregnancy."23
All other tumors represent an attenuation of
the condition of their normal tissue of
origin.
PROPERTIES OF THE
TROPHOBLAST CELL
But if cancer
is, as an unitarian phenomenon,
trophoblastic then we should expect to find
occasionally in the male---where trophoblast
never normally exists---at least some cases
in which the failure in somatic resistance
to the definitive malignant cell (trophoblast
cell) is so complete that the trophoblast is
frankly exhibited as such in the fiercely
malignant testicular or primary
extra-genital chorionepitheliomas.24, 25,
26, 27, 28 The chorionepitheliomas are
unquestionably the most malignant tumors in
either sex, and the degree of their
malignancy is routinely determined by
measuring the gonadotrophin their
trophoblast cells excrete.29, 30, 31
If the
trophoblast cell, presented outside the
normal canalization or checks of pregnancy,
is truly the cancer cell, then it must be
impossible for the trophoblast cell or its
hormone---"chorionic" gonadotrophin---ever
to be found in the male or, aside from the
canalization of normal pregnancy, in the
female except in a malignant fashion.
Neither the trophoblast cell nor its hormone
has ever been so found except as cancer. And
whenever the trophoblast cell or its hormone
has been found in the male or the
non-pregnant female, the associated
malignancy is observed to vary directly with
the urinary excretion of trophoblast
cell-produced gonadotrophin.
Even a
superficial examination of the trophoblast
cell indicates that it possesses such
properties of the cancer cell as
invasiveness, erosiveness, autonomy and
ability to metastasize throughout the organs
of the host.32, 33 Indeed, though normally
canalized to physiological ends, the
pregnancy trophoblast in carrying the
conceptus from anatomically outside of the
maternal host to implantation within the
uterine wall must behave in a profoundly
malignant fashion. No malignant cellinvades
any tissue any more rapidly and completely
than the pregnancy trophoblast does the
human uterus in he first few weeks of
gestation.
If the
trophoblast cell, then, is instrinsically
malignant, this malignancy should become
especially apparent when the trophoblast is
removed from the normal extrinsic checks and
controls surrounding it in its normal
canalization of pregnancy. Maximov is among
those who have observed normal pregnancy
trophoblast in tissue culture pari passu
non-tropho-
[Page 152]
blast.34 He
describes as follows a tissue culture
preparation of a normal rabbit embryo plus
the contiguous trophoblast:
"From the
very first moment of their formation in
vitro, the trophoblastic elements, whose
function under normal conditions is to
destroy, resorb, and penetrate into the
uterine mucosa, attack the growing embryonic
tissues. They glide between cells through
the intercellular spaces, along blood
vessels, gnaw large holes in epithelial
sheets....Wherever they appear they
dissolve, destroy and resorb everything
surrounding them. The picture sometimes
bears a striking resemblance to
chorionepithelioma malignum. As in vitro
there is no maternal tissue, the destructive
tendencies of the trophoblast are directed
toward the net and only available---the
embryonic tissue itself. This is rapidly
destroyed and totally used up for the
nutrition and growth of the trophoblast."
Maximov's
description of the nutritive utilization by
the trophoblast of somatic or embryonic
tissue in vitro bears a striking parallelism
to the following observation of Greenstein35
on the nutritive behavior of the cancer
cell:
"It is,
indeed, astonishing that a tumor can thus
attach itself to an organism already running
downhill in negative nitrogen balance and
subsequently grow at the host's further
expense."
Parasitization
is eloquently clear in the description given
by Maximov and it is implicit in
Greenstein's observation. Normal pregnancy
trophoblast represents, of course, a
parasitization of cells of one genetic
constitution by those of another. If cancer
is an unitarian and thereby a trophoblastic
phenomenon, its parasitic behavior is very
easy to understand.
Were pregnancy
trophoblast in vivo or in situ to lack the
humorally mediated checking influences that
are lacking in vitro then such tissue would
expectedly behave as it does in vitro and be
exhibited in the fiercely malignant fashion
of primary uterine chorionepithelioma.
Rather than
pause here to review in further detail the
points of identity between the cancer cell
and the trophoblast cell, of which the
senior author in a review of over 17,000
papers has been able to catalogue 43, let it
suffice to say that we have been unable to
find a single point of dissimilarity between
the cancer cell and the trophoblast cell.
The points of identity, of course, are those
shared exclusively by the cancer cell and
the trophoblast cell and not shared by any
somatic cell.
THE CELL OF ORIGIN AND
THE MEANS
OF ITS DIFFERENTIATION
If cancer is a
truly unitarian phenomenon, then its
cellular origin as well as its cellular
nature are exemplified in the origin and
nature of the most malignant exhibition of
cancer---primary uterine chorionepithelioma.
Pregnancy
trophoblast arises through the
differentiation by meiosis of a diploid
totipotent cell in response to organizer
stimuli (afforded through the sex steroids).
The meiosis of the diploid totipotent cell
results in a haploid gametogenous cell whose
only alternative to death is division
(sexually or parthenogenetically induced)
with the consequent production of
trophoblast. The only cell from which the
most primitive cell in the life-cycle, the
trophoblast cell, can arise is the
mostundifferentiated or
[Page 153]
most potent
cell in the life cycle: the diploid
totipotent cell. It is this cell alone that
is competent for meiosis. In fact, asidefrom
the explanation of spontaneous generation,
only two alternatives exist for the origin
of the malignant cell. Like all other growth
phenomena, it may arise as the result of the
differentiation of an undifferentiated cell
in response to organizer stimuli;
alternatively, it may be ascribed to the
ontogenetic "reversion" of normal cells to a
primitive state. Even though the very notion
of such reversion is a thermodynamic fantasy
inadmissible by modern biology, if a normal
cell could revert, the most primitive cell
in the life cycle toward which such
reversion could occur is still the
trophoblast cell. Hence, aside from the
errors of spontaneous generation or cellular
reversion, only the phenomena of cellular
differentiation are tenable in accounting
for the origin of the cancer cell---though
the stimulus to such differentiation may, of
course, be diversely mediated.
It is thus a
simple embryological fact that the malignant
component of the most malignant of all
exhibitions of cancer---primary uterine
chorionepithelioma---represents the
unchecked growth of normal trophoblast that
has arisen through the differentiation of a
diploid totipotent cell, by reduction
division, and the division of the consequent
haploid gametogenous cell to produce
trophoblast. We have seen the proof of this
in the fiercely malignant behavior of rabbit
trophoblast removed from the checking
influences of the maternal host and placed
in tissue culture. This trophoblast,
ofcourse, came into being through processes
normal to the production of all trophoblast
in normal gestation. This is true also of
the trophoblast of primary uterine
chorionepithelioma.
It is
necessary that we emphasize here the fact
that our description of the origin of any
trophoblast cells is merely a recapitulation
of commonplace, universally accepted
embryological data. We must not permit
terminology to obscure this fact. Let us add
that it has been experimentally established
that in mammals the haploid gametogenous
cell in either the male or the female may be
nonsexually activated into division with the
consequent and inevitable production of
trophoblast.
Because the
trophoblast cell of primary testicular
chorionepithelioma is indistinguishable from
that of the normal pregnancy trophoblast
cell36, 37, 38 or a trophoblast cell of
primary uterine chorionepithelioma,39, 40
the general consensus in pathology that
chorionepitheliomas arise from the division
of a gametogenous cell (non-sexually
activated), derived through the normal
meiosis of a diploid totipotent cell, is
biologically and logically sound. It is
likewise generally recognized that primary
extra-genital chorionepitheliomas occurring
in both sexes represent trophoblast that
shares a common cellular origin with all
other trophoblast; an origin from an haploid
gametogenous cell (through fertilization or
non-sexually) that has arisen through the
meiosis of a diploid totipotent cell. This
principle is congruent with the axiom that
cells which are alike arise from
pre-existing cells that are alike.
[Page 154]
INDEX OF MALIGNANCY
If cancer is
an unitarian phenomenon in which all
morphological exhibitions share, in varying
degrees, the known malignant component of
the chorionepitheliomas, then it follows (1)
that the malignancy of a growth will vary
directly with its concentration of
trophoblast cells and inversely with its
concentration of body or somatic cells; and
(2) the trophoblast cells comprising a
malignant lesion must possess the capacity
for being morphologically masked or obscured
by the tissue inwhich they primarily occur
or to which they metastasize. Testicular
chorionepitheliomas afford an interesting
vantage point for the examination of these
possibilities. In screening over 900
testicular cancers in the Army Institute of
Pathology, Friedman and Moore (1946)
reported, in part, as follows: 41
"Nearly twice
as many metastases which exhibited
chorionepitheliomatous structures arose from
primary tumors containing no
chorionepithelioma as from pure
chorionepitheliomas or neoplasms containing
focal chorionepithelioma. While only 0.4
per cent of the primary testicular tumors
were pure chorionepitheliomas and 6.4 per
cent showed focal chorionepitheliomatous
tissue, 27 per cent of all metastases which
terminated fatally contained
chorionepitheliomatous elements." (emphasis
ours)
Thus, not only
may the trophoblast, when frankly exhibited
as such in the primary site, metastasize to
be morphologically masked in the secondary
site, but the primary trophoblast itself may
be morphologically masked by the soma and be
frankly exhibited only when metastases occur
into tissues of relatively lower reactivity
in which the trophoblast is not
morphologically masked but is frankly
exhibited as such. The masking of the
trophoblast by the reactivity of the somatic
cells is a measure of the resistance of the
host: the degree to which such somatic
resistance against the ectopic trophoblast
fails determines the malignancy with which
the trophoblast is exhibited. Thus, the
greater the incidence of a
chorionepitheliomatous exhibition (trophoblast)
in the metastases, the greater the degree of
malignancy.
COMPETENT CELL AND
ORGANIZER
The origin of
every new cell is the result of the
apposition of a competent cell and an
organizer stimulus. All new cells arise as
the result of cellular differentiation,
which is a process by which a new cell type
of a higher degree of individualization and
a lower degree of developmental competence
is produced. There are no exceptions to this
generalization---not even the cancer cell.
While a differentiated cell may become
plastically deformed or necrobiotic, it can
never form a new cell type through any means
except the forward-moving course of cellular
differentiation. Cellular reversion is a
thermodynamicimpossibility; it has never
occurred and can never occur. Water does not
run uphill---not even in cancer. The
cancerous cell is neither a deformed one nor
a necrobiotic one. Its lethality resides in
the very fact that intrinsically it is a
normal cell---though its spatial and
temporal relationship to the
organism-as-a-whole is an abnormal one. The
trophoblastic orunitarian thesis simply
recognizes that: (1) the can-
[Page 155]
cer cell is
contained within the life-cycle and (2) that
it is the most primitive cell in that
life-cycle. Though the diploid totipotent
cells which give origin to trophoblast are
known to be very abundant in the gonads, the
question next arises as to their occurrence
extra-genitally. Most modern pathologists
42, 43, 44, 45, 46 recognize the existence
of so-called ectopic germ cells (diploid
totipotent cells) and Bounoure 47 has, in an
extensive monograph, recently reviewed the
conclusive observational and experimental
evidence for the dispersion of such cells
throughout the soma. Of course,
embryologically, these cells are nothing
more than totally undifferentiated cells
that have not, as Arey phrased it,48
participated in body building but have
reserved their total potency or competency
since the initial cleavage of the zygote.
Cells of various degrees of
undifferentiation exist within the soma as a
reservoir from which tissue repair and
regeneration occur. But only the totally
undifferentiated cells of the soma are
competent for meiosis; these cells are the
diploid totipotent cells. Of course, all
cells in the soma are diploid, but only
those that are totally undifferentiated are
totally potent or totipotent---hence
competent for meiosis. That such cells exist
as well as function in the soma is further
proved by the occasional occurrence of
primary extra-genital chorionepithelioma in
the male in such regions of low tissue
reactivity as the pineal gland49,50 and the
anterior mediastinum.51, 52, 53, 54 The
frankly exhibited trophoblast cells are
correctly attributed to the only progenitor
of trophoblast: a diploid totipotent cell
that has undergone reduction division or
meiosis to form a haploid gametogenous cell
that has trophoblast formation as the only
alternative to death.
Carcinogenesis
is thus seen to be a phenomenon involving a
spatially anomalous differentiation in
response to organizer stimuli. (Primary
uterine chorionepithelioma---as well as
normal pregnancy trophoblast---while
involving precisely the same differentiation
in its origin does not, of course, involve
it anomalously.) The differentiation
involves the phenomenon of meiosis with the
consequent production of trophoblast, which,
presented ectopically, is inevitably
exhibited as cancer---themalignancy of which
depends upon the extent to which such
ectopic trophoblast is resisted. Thus in the
unitarian thesis we see the malignant
component in all exhibitions of cancer
deriving from precisely the same cell type
from which the chorionepitheliomas arise. We
see all producing the same cell type---trophoblast.
We see this cell doing ectopically precisely
what it does in its normal canalization:
eroding, infiltrating, and metastasizing.
"One of the
most important problems in cancer research,"
Greenstein55 points out, "is concerned with
the question of why primary tumors
metastasize." If cancer is trophoblastic,
the problem of metastases is resolved: the
normal pregnancy trophoblast is the only
cell in the life-cycle that regularly
metastasizes, doing so throughout the
maternal host in the early months of
pregnancy.56, 57
The stimuli to
malignant differentiation are exemplified in
the sex steroids which induce the meiosis of
diploid totipotent cells in their normal
[Page 156]
canalization.
In view of the relatively specific organizer
action of steroids, it is significant that
practically all of the carcinogens are
either steroids or, like diethylstilbestrol,
possess the physiological properties of
steroids. Though carcinogenesis may be
mediated by highly diverse means, the
ultimate common pathway involves the
apposition of competent cell and organizer
stimuli. The competent cell is always a
totally undifferentiated cell (diploid
totipotent cell) and the organizer stimulus
ultimately involved appears to be a
steroidal compound.
Agents
producing a chronic inflammation can also
prove indirectly carcinogenic, since chronic
inflammatory sites have a marked capacity
for localizing or concentrating steroidal
sex hormones as well as other substances.58
Certain chemicals may also prove indirectly
carcinogenic through impairing the somatic
detoxification mechanism for steroids.59, 60
That under special and very limited
circumstances viruses may also contribute to
the common pathway by which malignant
differentiation is accomplished in birds*
and rodents is recognized. Virchow, however,
pointed out 90 years ago that no stimulus
can elicit from a tissue potencies not
inherent within the tissue. The general
consensus is that the role of the
cancervirus is evocatory, eliciting from the
organism an inherent potency; rather than
creative, conferring de novo the cancer cell
upon the organism.
ESTROGENS
Since the
meiosis of normally canalized diploid
totipotent cells is accomplished in both
sexes through the organizer action of
steroidal sex hormones, a review of the
formidable literature on the carcinogenic
properties of estrogen correlated with the
unitarian thesis would be most pertinent to
a complete elucidation of the thesis. Space
will not permit this, and it must suffice to
say that the normal estrogens bear as
crucially a basic relationship to the origin
of malignant cells, under ordinary
circumstances, as chorionepithelioma bears
to their cellular identity.
VIRUSES AND SOMATIC
MUTATION
Since the
virus theory is subsumed under the unitarian
thesis---as a specialized contributory
means** of eliciting the malignant
differentiation---the chief remaining theory
is the somatic mutation hypothesis. This
hypothesis explains nothing and is, in fact
little more than a circular definition:
cancer is due to a change; a change is a
mutation. This change occurs inthe body or
soma; therefore, cancer is due to a somatic
mutation. On the other hand, the
trophoblastic or unitarian thesis does
embrace a very definite genetic "mutation."
This "mutation" is expressed as meiosis
-------
* The phylogenic homologue of the
trophoblast (extra-embryonic blastoderm) in
birds is known to exhibit, under certain
conditions, malignant properties: e.g.,
anidian formation61.
**Joseph Needham62 has cogently remarked:
"It is an instructive exercise to read
through the writings on the virus theory of
cancer,substituting the words 'active agent'
or 'active extract' for virus wherever it
occurs. The results are illuminating."
[Page 157]
whereby, with
the division of the consequent gametogenous
cell, the ectopic trophoblast (cancer) cell
presented to the soma is, through the
necessity of meiosis, of a genetic
composition unique from the soma; and,
therefore, in the most literal genetic sense
a neoplasm.
Even were one
uncritically to accept the somatic mutation
hypothesis63 or the virus theory of
cancer,64 it would be necessary either to
seek their resolution in the unitarian or
trophoblastic thesis or to turn to a non-unitarian
explanation. In which case it would be
necessary, then, to postulate an
indefinitely large variety of unknown cancer
viruses or a similar variety of unknown
somatic mutations to account for the origin
of the cancer cell. But not even these would
suffice sinceneither hypothesis could
account for the fiercely malignant behavior
of normal trophoblast in vitro---nor for the
fact that this cell has never been found in
a non-pregnant organism except as cancer.
MEIOSIS
We have
observed that the extra-genital dispersion
of diploid totipotent cells is a commonplace
fact. We have specifically ascribed the
origin of all morphological exhibitions of
cancer to the meiosis of one or more such
diploid totipotent cells with the consequent
production of a gametogenous cell whose only
alternative to death is division with the
resulting production of trophoblast.
In the normal
reproductive canalization the only way in
which trophoblast can arise is through the
meiosis of a diploid totipotent cell and the
consequent division (non-sexually or by
fertilization) of the resulting gametogenous
cell to produce trophoblast. Therefore, one
question alone remains here: can the same
diploid totipotent cell in an extragenital
site undergo meiosis to eventuate in
trophoblast production?
As early as
1879 Arnold observed gametoid (meiotic)
mitosis in malignant tissue. About twenty
years later Farmer, Moore and Walker
reported the occurrence of meiosis
(heterotypic mitosis) at the border of
malignant tumors.65 In 1929 Evans and Swezy
described in inflamed somatic tissue changes
"strikingly similar to those of meiotic
mitosis."66 In 1936 Hearne observed meiotic
changes in tissues cultured with
methylcholanthrene67 and Molendorff made
similar observations in 1939 with estrone.68
Diploid
totipotent cells are dispersed throughout
the soma. Meiosis occurs within the soma.
Frank trophoblast cells occur within the
soma---though inevitably in a malignant
exhibition. They can arise only through the
division of a gametogenous cell produced by
the meiosis of a diploid totipotent cell.
Frank trophoblast cells have never been
found in the soma except as the most
malignant exhibition of cancer---with the
exception of pregnancy.
Indeed, the
difficulty is no longer one of accounting
for the origin of the definitive malignant
cell through the phenomena discussed, but
rather one of seeking any explanation of how
the meiosis of ectopic diploid toti-
[Page 158]
potent cells,
exposed to adequate organizer stimuli, could
invariably be averted so as to preclude
their normal differentiation to trophoblast,
whose ectopic exhibition has never been
known except in a malignant fashion. Frankly
exhibited, such trophoblast comprises the
most malignant exhibition of cancer
possible, though when morphologically masked
by thesomatic response of the hostal cells
the malignancy of such trophoblast is
moderated.
UNITARIAN VS.
NON-UNITARIAN THESIS
The body of
experimentally established facts comprising
modern oncology is formidable. It is not
possible for any explicitly defined thesis
to stand unless it is congruent with, or at
least not contradictory to, such facts. Only
the unitarian thesis finds such congruence.
To the unitarian thesis in general and in
particular to the preceding data outlined
for it, it is especially instructive to
apply Herbert Spencer's criterion of
truth---the inconceivability of the
opposite. The thesis opposite or alternative
to the unitarian one is that each
morphological exhibition of cancer
represents a biologically distinctive
phenomenon, each with a malignant component
different from all others. This would mean
literally hundreds of basically different
types of cancer cells---each type being
normally unrepresented in the life-cycle;
therefore, each beingspontaneously created.
Not only would it become necessary to
postulate the existence of hundreds of
distinct species of cancer cells, but also a
postulate of an almost infinite number of
subspecies of each type of cancer cell would
be required to account for the varying
degrees of malignancy exhibited by a given
malignant lesion in the course of its
evolution. Since asingle chemical carcinogen
can evoke practically any malignant
exhibition, then it would become
necessary---according to any non-unitarian
concept---to conclude that causes which are
alike produce effects that are unlike. On
the same basis, the occurrence of the
frankly exhibited trophoblast cells of
extra-genital chorionepithelioma in the male
(identical with those of the primary uterine
form) would necessitate the unbiological
conclusion that cells which are alike arise
from cells that are unlike. The logical
negation of any non-unitarian hypothesis is
further apparent in the experimentally
defined uniformity of cancer cells in every
one of over twenty factors studied to date.
(p.1)
In contrast to
the alternative non-unitarian hypothesis,
the unitarian thesis holds that the
malignant component in all exhibitions of
cancer is the same; that this component is
not spontaneously created but represents the
most primitive cell in the life-cycle; that
this cell arises not through "reversion" but
through differentiation; that the varying
morphological exhibitions are simply
conditioned by the nature and resistance of
the tissue in which the ectopic trophoblast
finds itself; and that the malignancy of the
exhibition is, roughly, expressed in the
degree of deformation of the somatic tissue
by the ectopic trophoblast---and that this
is reflected in the morphology from which
histological diagnoses derive.
[Page 159]
The unitarian
thesis and the trophoblastic thesis are of
logical necessity synonymous: the most
malignant exhibition of cancer (chorionepithelioma)
comprises cells intrinsically identical with
pregnancy trophoblast cells.* Then, if
cancer is an unitarian phenomenon, the
malignant component of the varying
morphological types must be trophoblastic;
for, two quantities equal to a third are
equal to each other.
Finally, were
we to set aside all else evidential of the
unitarian or trophoblastic nature of cancer,
and scrutinize but a single datum, we should
find that neither experimental fact nor
scientific reasoning can offer any
alternative to the trophoblastic nature of
cancer in explanation. This one datum is the
fact that many authors over the past
half-century have described frank
trophoblast (chorionepithelioma)
metastasizing from a primary site to appear
at the secondary site in an
adenocarcinomatous or other exhibition.69,
70, 71 And the converse has frequently been
seen.72 Moreover, frankly exhibited
trophoblast (chorionepithelioma) often has
been described as merging by imperceptible
degrees into an adenocarcinomatous or
sarcomatous exhibition. In their
comprehensive monograph on
chorionepithelioma, Park and Lees (1950)
write:
"There is
no doubt that in many instances of
testicular chorionepithelioma, certainly in
several of our sections, characteristic
trophoblast merges imperceptibly with areas
of undifferentiated tissue whose hostal
origin would never be questioned."73
TROPHOBLAST AND THE
PANCREAS
John Beard, a
lecturer in embryology at the University of
Edinburgh, first published on the
trophoblastic thesis of cancer in June,
1902.74 By February, 1905 he reported, on
embryological grounds, the antithesis of the
pancreatic enzymes to the trophoblast
cell;75 and, a few years later he
specifically pointed out that the cancer or
trophoblast cell protected itself against
pancreatic enzymes through the production of
specific antitryptic substances.76 The
occurrence of tryptic inhibitors in cancer
sera has, during the past forty years, been
described by at least fifteen different
workers,77-92 though not within the context
of the trophoblastic thesis.
In 1947 Krebs,
Krebs and Gurchot first pointed out the
specific antithesis of chymotrypsin to the
malignant (or
trophoblastic) cell.93 In 1948 Clark,
Cliffton and Newton further confirmed the
specific and antitryptic antithesis of the
cancer cell and offered evidence for the
diagnostic and prognostic utilization of the
phenomenon. In 1949 West and Hilliard, in
the study of sera of over 3,000 cancer
patients, reported the specific antithesis
of the malignant cell to chymotrypsin by
showing that 15 grams of crystalline
chymotrypsin would be necessary--in a single
dose--to neutralize all of the averageexcess
of chymotrypsin inhibitor in the serum of
the advanced cancer patient. The latter
workers proposed the utilization of the
specific antichymotryptic titer of the serum
for prognostic but not necessarily
diagnostic purpose.88, 91
-------
*The malignant exhibition of the trophoblast
of the placenta is the expression of a lack
of extrinsic growth restraints against the
trophoblast; this fact was demonstrated in
the tissue culture of normal rabbit
trophoblast.
[Page 160]
It is
noteworthy that West and Hilliard, as well
as others, have described a quantitative
relationship between the concentration of
cancer cells and the titer of specific
chymotrypsin inhibitor. This titer was
observed to fall after the surgical removal
of the malignant tumor and to rise linearly
with its recurrence. Thus the data on the
antitryptic properties of cancer sera are
not only proof of the antithesis between the
cancer cell and the pancreatic enzymes, but
are further evidential of the unitarian--and
thereby trophoblastic--nature of cancer.
Since the
malignant cell is not spontaneously created
but has its normal counterpart in the most
primitive cell of the life-cycle, each
organism in the span of its own gestation
destroys the cellular counterpart of cancer.
This destruction is accomplished through the
pancreatic enzymes, notably chymotrypsin and
amylase.
When the
mammalian organism totally fails in this,
the pregnancy trophoblast overgrows as
chorionepithelioma.94 A partial failure is
reflected as a toxemic pregnancy,95 and/or a
hydatidiform mole accompanied by an
abnormally high excretion of chorionic (trophoblastic)
gonadotrophin. For this reason hydatidiform
moles are most frequently associated with
toxemic pregnancies, while the risk of
sequent chorionepithelioma is 2,000 to 4,000
times greater after hydatidiform mole than
afternormal pregnancy.96 The reason for "the
much higher curability rate of
choriocarcinoma preceded by hydatidiform
mole," as reported by Park and Lees,96 is
that the precedent hydatidiform mole
represented at least a partially successful
antithesis on the part of the maternal host
to the trophoblast.*
The reason why
primary uterine chorionepithelioma can
within a few weeks arise and kill the
patient is that this most malignant tumor
simply represents a hyperplasia of normal
trophoblast cells freed from their extrinsic
restraint---just as the in vitro culture of
the rabbit trophoblast freed from the
maternal environment yields a fiercely
malignant exhibition.
It is well
established* (1) that pregnant diabetics
exhibit a greatly increased incidence of the
pregnancy toxemias; (2) that the severity of
such toxemias varies directly with the
overgrowth of cellular trophoblast as
reflected in the abnormally elevated
excretion of chorionic gonadotrophin; (3)
that the phenomenon involves a non-insulin
deficiency of the pancreasgland; (4) that
the predisposition to pregnancy toxemias is
noted as early as five years97,99 prior to
the clinical onset of diabetes; (5) that the
administration of steroidal sex hormones in
such pregnancy toxemias frequently
ameliorate the condition; and (6) that this
amelioration is reflected in a proportionate
depression in the urinary excretion of
chorionic gonadotrophin.
Since such
steroidal sex hormones as estrogen depress
the proliferation of the cellular
trophoblast both in normal and toxemic
pregnancies, as reflected in a depression in
the urinary excretion of chorionic (cytotropho-
-------
* The complete bibliography for these data
is given by Krebs & Bartlett's (1949)
monograph on "The Pregnancy Toxemias, the
Role of theTrophoblast and the
Pancreas."122[sic]
[Page 161]
blastic)
gonadotrophin, it is significant that
Kullander (1948) found in primary uterine
chorionepithelioma that the administration
of stilbestrol resulted in a clinical
improvement that paralleled the decline in
the urinary excretion of chorionic
gonadotrophin.100 Though Kullander did not
cure his patients, so long as stilbestrol
controlled the excretion of chorionic
gonadotrophin, they improved.
It is a
commonplace observation that the
administration of estrogen or testosterone
during pregnancy will often depress the
production of chorionic gonadotrophin
sufficiently to cause the Ascheim-Zondek
test or its Friedman modification to become
negative.
In listing the
criteria of malignancy, Oberling and Woglom
write: "...Above all is the impudent
independence called autonomy."101 Certainly,
no other property is more characteristic of
the cancer cell than autonomy; yet in the
most malignant exhibition of cancer possible
we find the trophoblast cells showing the
same susceptibility to thechecking influence
of sex steroids as is found for the normal
pregnancy trophoblast.
If cancer is
trophoblastic, and as such an unitarian
phenomenon, it would seem that the steroidal
sex hormones should suppress the growth not
only of pregnancy trophoblast and
chorionepithelioma but all other exhibitions
of cancer as well. That this would be the
case were sufficient localization of the
steroidal sex hormones possible at all
malignant sites is shown in the fact that
these hormones do act to suppress the growth
of mammary cancer, prostatic cancer, and
their matastases involving the skeletal
system. Morphologically, the difference
between a primary mammary cancer and a
prostatic one ismuch less pronounced than
the difference between either and a primary
chorionepithelioma.
The placenta,
the prostate, and the mammary gland are
notably capable of the selective
localization of steroids; hence, trophoblast
in any of these areas will show a like
response to the injection of steroidal sex
hormones. In the case of prostatic and
mammary growths the use of the
physiologically antagonistic steroid is
rational, since such causes the somatic
elements in the growth to atrophy. That the
palliative effect is dependent upon the
ability of the somatic elements in thetumor
to localize the steroids is shown in the
fact that the skeletal metastases from the
prostate as well as from the mammary gland
are responsive specifically to estrogen and
testosterone, respectively. Yet this
amenability is lost as, with increasing
malignancy, the original somatic elements in
the skeletal metastases are lost. That such
a loss is not directly due to the increasing
malignancy but indirectly to the loss of the
specific somatic cells responsible for the
localization of the steroids is
indicated by the fact that in the placenta,
while the localizing somatic elements
remain, the growth of the vastly more
malignant chorionepitheliomatous exhibition
is checked.
Thus we find
the unitarian principle of cancer implicit
in the sex hormone therapy of cancer, as in
all other useful forms of cancer therapy.
Moreover, in the unitarian principle the use
of steroidal sex hormones in cancer finds
its first rationale.
[Page 162]
Since a
non-insulin pancreatic deficiency has been
identified with the overgrowth of pregnancy
trophoblast, which overgrowth has been shown
amenable to steroidal sex hormones, two
questions arise: (1) what is the nature of
the deficient pancreatic factor, and (2) is
the deficiency of this factor associated
with the overgrowth of all trophoblast?
About half a century ago John Beard102-119
found a concomitance between the commencing
function of the fetal pancreas, as indicated
by the appearance of zymogen granules in the
gland, and the precipitate degeneration of
the trophoblast or its phylogenetic
homologue. Broad comparative studies
confirmed his thesis that, in the span of
normal gestation, the pancreatic enzymes are
responsible for checking the growth and
ultimately destroying the gestational
trophoblast or its homologue. In fact,
Beard's studies were so carefully performed
that he was able to state half a century ago
that in the 56th day in the span of human
gestation the cellular trophoblast undergoes
a sudden degeneration. Some 30 years after
this work, the trophoblast cell-produced
chorionic gonadotrophin was discovered, and
only recently has the quantitative technic
for the estimation of chorionic
gonadotrophin been sufficiently perfected to
show that a composite102 excretion curve for
chorionic gonadotrophin made through the
span of human gestation coincides120
precisely with the curve predicted half a
century ago by John Beard.
If the urinary
excretion of chorionic gonadotrophin
persists at the original level after the
56th to 70th day in the span of human
gestation, the process is inevitably
exhibited as chorionepithelioma. In fact, if
the abnormal elevation of chorionic
gonadotrophin found in pancreatic
dysfunction in pregnancy exceeds a certain
level, again the process is exhibited as
chorionepithelioma.
If the urinary
excretion of chorionic gonadotrophin
persists at the original level after the
56th to 70th day in the span of human
gestation, the process is inevitably
exhibited as chorionepithelioma. In fact, if
the abnormal elevation of chorionic
gonadotrophin found in pancreatic
dysfunction in pregnancy exceeds a certain
level, again the process is exhibited as
chorionepithelioma.
In view of the
antithesis of the pancreatic proteases to
the trophoblast cell, it is clear why both
pregnancy and cancer are associated with
high titers of trypsin and chymotrypsin
inhibitors: antithesis is a two-way street,
so to speak.
If the
pancreatic enzymes are antithetic to the
cancer cell, if they resist the cancer cell
as the cancer cell is known to resist them
(through the specific antitryptic
inhibitors) why does cancer of the pancreas
gland occur? Why is it that cancer is not
only primary in this gland but that this
gland itself may be subject to secondary
growths through metastases or direct
invasion?
The pancreatic
proteases exist in the pancreas in the form
of their inactive zymogens. These are not
converted into the corresponding active
enzymes until they are acted upon by the
kinases of the blood or, especially, by
those of the small intestine. In view of
this, one may ask why the small intestine,
then, is not practically immune to cancer.
Woglom answers this question well in his
commentary in an abstract of a paper by
Raab:120,122,123
"One of
the most striking features about the
pathology of malignant disease is the almost
complete absence of carcinoma in the
duodenum and its increasing frequency
throughout the gastro-intestinal tract in
direct proportion to the distance from this
exempt segment."
[Page 163]
It is
noteworthy that the small intestine is not
only practically immune to primary tumors
but also to metastases. A fulminating
malignant growth may exist in the pyloric
end of the stomach a few millimeters from
the immune small intestine, but, as William
Boyd points out, "The duodenum is never
invaded, the tumor stopping short at the
pylorus. Spread to neighboringorgans usually
involves the liver or the pancreas."124 The
incidence of malignancy is, of course, high
immediately distal to the ileocecal valve.
The pancreatic
enzymes not only normally occur in the
active state in the blood stream, which
possesses an optimum pH for their action but
the clinical determination of serum amylase
and trypsin are standard procedures,
especially in pancreatic diseases.
THE PANCREAS AND
CARCINOGENESIS
The fact that
pregnancy occurs in the presence of a normal
concentration of pancreatic enzymes
indicates that trophoblast can exist for a
while under such conditions. It must be
remembered, however, that such trophoblast
is: (1) held in check until the 56th day of
gestation and almost completely destroyed
shortly thereafter (with the commencing
function of the fetal pancreas) and (2) that
implantation occurs after the trophoblast
has had about a four-day period of growth
anatomicallyexterior to the host.
The
trophoblast carries with it its own anti-tryptic
enzymes against the pancreatic proteases. As
we have seen,
carcinogenesis involves ectopically
precisely the same basic mechanisms involved
in the production of canalized trophoblast.
The prolonged exposure of a tissue to
carcinogens results in a prolonged
depression in its respiratory mechanisms.125
This may result in the appearance and
persistence of ectopic trophoblast in the
exposed tissue. The trophoblast or cancer
cell is autonomous of the hostal respiratory
system and is obligatively anaerobic,
undergoing [an]aerobic glycolysis even in
the presence of a free oxygen supply.126 The
trophoblastic thesis explains the long-knownidentity
of trophoblast cell metabolism with that of
the cancer cell: 127, 128, 129 an obligative
anaerobic system is obviously a necessity in
a primitive parasitic cell like the
trophoblast (or cancer) cell.
When cancer is
elicited experimentally from a normal
laboratory animal, the lesion usually does
not metastasize, but attains a large size
and is almost completely somatic. Herein
reside the scientific limitations of
artificially induced or transplanted animal
tumors in the scientific study of
chemotherapeutic agents. Such tumors are
practically benign in the biological sense.
Because the pregnancy trophoblast regularly
and normally metastasizes in the early phase
of gestation, we must expectmetastases
ultimately in any "full blown" cancer.
While a
low-grade malignant growth (primarily
somatic tumefaction) can be induced
ultimately by sufficient carcinogenic
stimuli in the presence of normal pancreatic
function, a highly malignant exhibition is
invariably accompanied by at least a
relative pancreatic insufficiency implicit
in the
[Page 164]
correspondingly high serum titer of
antitryptic and antichymotryptic enzymes.
That the
induction of the ectopic trophoblast is
usually accomplished against great
difficulty---regardless of pancreatic
adequacy---is indicated in the fact that
non-chorionepitheliomatous exhibitions in
man usually have a latent period of years,
while a chorionepithelioma in pregnancy may
arise from the preexisting trophoblast and
destroy the host within a few weeks.
The extent to
which the soma resists malignant involution
is reflected in the fact that only two
cellular differentiations---meiosis of the
diploid totipotent cell and subsequent
division of the resultant gametogenous
cell---divide the malignant cell from the
benign one. This explains the all-or-none
suddenness classic to the malignant
change---and theabsence of true transitional
cells.
CANCER A COMPOSITE
TISSUE
The malignant
lesion is a composite tissue comprising (1)
trophoblast plus (2) somatic elements. The
malignancy of a lesion varies directly with
its concentration of trophoblast and
inversely with its concentration of somatic
elements. The normal placenta, too,
represents a composite tissue; for, here the
trophoblast cell finds its normal
canalization in the life-cycle. Just as the
malignancy of a placenta, in a
chorionepitheliomatous exhibition, varies
directly with the concentration of
trophoblast cells, so in the ectopic
presentation of trophoblast that comprises
cancer the malignancy of the lesion varies
with its concentration of trophoblast. The
only fundamental difference is that in the
latter the trophoblast cells are
morphologically masked by the resisting
soma---except in the most malignant of
extra-genital tumors: chorionepithelioma.
A tissue can
be malignant only by being a composite one.
Malignancy is an antithetic relationship
between cells and finds being by virtue of a
thetic benignancy. In its simplest terms,
then, a malignant tumor comprises somatic
tumefaction plus a malignant component. It
is for this reason that the greatest
tumefaction is usually associated with the
least malignant exhibitions and the least
tumefaction often with the most malignant
exhibitions. Since trophoblast normally
metastasizes,tumors of the highest
malignancy and lowest tumefaction tend to be
the most metastatic. Thus the increase or
decrease in the malignancy of a given tumor
is not the result of a continuing
spontaneous generation of an infinite
variety of cancer cells, but merely the
expression of the increase or decrease in
the concentration of A CONSTANT
MALIGNANTCOMPONENT. As the antithesis of
this component determines the malignancy of
the lesion so that the soma determines its
benignancy.
LEUKEMIA
In the
leukemias the constant malignant component (trophoblast)
is present in the lymphopoietic or
myelopoietic tissues. The action of such
[Page 165]
tissues to the
malignant component results in the
proliferation of somatic white blood cells
of varying degrees of maturity. This is the
counterpart of tumefaction in the sessile
tumor. Thus the unitarian or trophoblastic
thesis, different from the non-unitarian
concept, finds no contradiction in the fact
that often the most malignant phase of the
leukemic process---the so-called aleukemic
leukemia---actually involves a leukopenia.
This phase is the most malignant because the
somatic cells (leukopoietic tissue) have
lost their ability to resist through virtue
of the destruction of the leukopoietic
tissue by ectopic trophoblast. For this
reason the aleukemic or leukopenic stage is
often terminal to a preceding highly
leukemic or leukocytic phase.
TROPHOBLASTIC HORMONES
The routine
utilization of the trophoblastic hormone,
chorionic gonadotrophin, is, of course, a
clinical commonplace as a means of diagnosis
as an index to therapeutic response in the
case of the most malignant exhibitions of
cancer---the chorionepitheliomas and certain
other exhibitions of cancer. The excretion
of this hormone varies directly with the
malignancy of the tumor which, in turn,
varies directly with the concentration of
trophoblast cells.
In 1944
Roffo131 reported a similar gonadotrophin in
all of 1,000 cancer patients examined, and
none in the blood or urine f the control
series---with the exception of pregnancy, of
course. In 1946 Krebs and Gurchot132
reported the identification of Roffo's
gonadotrophin as trophoblastic. In 1947
Beard, Halperin and Liebert published a
confirmation of the prior papers and
suggested a practical utilization of the
phenomenon.133 Prior to these studies
numerous scattered reports of chorionic
gonadotrophin in cancer serum and urine
appeared in the literature but without the
context of any unified theory. Zondek
reported the hormone in the urine of 82 per
cent of females afflicted with cancers of
the genital organs and in 36 per cent of
female patients suffering from extra-genital
tumors.134,135 Five years later Zondek was
able to duplicate and extend his original
findings,136 which had been confirmed by
others.137, 138, 139
It is
necessary to emphasize that the original
work of Zondek as well as other workers was
done on the erroneous assumption that the
hormone was produced by the anterior
pituitary gland. Even after tissue culture
studies had proved the trophoblast-cell-origin
of the hormone, its occasional
identification in cancer urines, through the
use of the Ascheim-Zondek or Friedman tests,
was usually dismissed as an inexplicable
datum of an inexplicable disease. Only
within the context of the unitarian or
trophoblastic thesis was sufficient
theoretical justification found to
concentrate and selectively extract the
urines of the less malignant exhibitions of
cancer specifically for the same hormones (chorionic
gonadotrophin and syncytial steroids) always
found by ordinary technics in the most
malignant exhibitions.
Thus to the
already established uniformities for 20 or
more known
[Page 166]
factors among
the various exhibitions of cancer, we now
find an hormone (not only evidential of the
unitarian thesis but of the specific
trophoblastic nature of cancer as well) in
the trophoblast cell-produced hormones. Like
all other uniformities found in the
malignant lesion, that for the trophoblastic
hormones becomes increasingly apparent with
the malignancy of the growth, so that frank
chorionepitheliomas are found excreting as
many as one million International Units of
chorionicgonadotrophin every 24 hours, while
the much less malignant exhibitions with no
frank trophoblast cells excrete 50 or fewer
units of the trophoblastic hormone.
DIAGNOSTIC
IMPLICATIONS
There are only
two fundamental kinds of cancer tests: (1)
the indirect tests concerned with the
detection of a substance produced by the
soma as the result of the presence of cancer
cells; and (2) the direct tests concerned
with the detection of a substance produced
by the cancer cells themselves. Though the
incidence of a specific somatic change may
bear a high correlation with the presence of
an uniform stimulus, the correlation can
never be a truly specific one, since
obviously nosomatic reaction is so
specifically reserved for the presence of
cancer or trophoblast cells that it can not
be falsely elicited by other stimuli.
The
limitations of the indirect tests have been
well demonstrated in practice. The only
reliable and generally accepted serum or
urine tests for cancer are the direct ones,
such as the Ascheim-Zondek test and its
numerous modifications. Just as hundreds of
indirect tests have been tried and discarded
for pregnancy diagnosis, so have hundreds of
indirect tests for cancer been tried and
then discarded. The only tests for either
pregnancy or cancer that have survived are
those direct testsdepending upon the
identification of a substance unique to
cancer and pregnancy: the hormone of the
trophoblast cell. Since cancer is
trophoblastic, its most malignant
exhibition---chorionepithelioma---is highly
amenable to the direct test. In fact, the
possibility of either an indirect or direct
general diagnostic test for cancer depends
upon cancer being an unitarian phenomenon.
The efficient
clinical implementation of the trophoblastic
or unitarian thesis depends upon the
development of a simple, reliable and highly
accurate quantitative test for the specific
products of the trophoblast cell.
While we have
identified the presence of chorionic
gonadotrophin in the urines of patients with
all exhibitions of cancer, we have found the
technological evolution of a quantitatively
precise chorionic gonadotrophin test
difficult for the less malignant exhibitions
of cancer. When we consider that a
chorionepitheliomatous exhibition of cancer
in the male may yield over 1,000,000 I.U. of
chorionic gonadotrophin while metastatic
testicular cancers of a much lower
malignancy---thoughbiologically still more
malignant than most extra-genital
growths---may yield fewer than 50 I.U. for a
like volume of urine, then the physical
difficulties in the
[Page 167]
case of most
of the extragenital tumors of still lower
malignancy is obvious.
From the
urines of patients with the common
exhibitions of cancer, the authors have
obtained highly active preparations of
chorionic gonadotrophin, and are now engaged
in the crystallization of chorionic
gonadotrophin, by the method of Claeson,
Hogberg and Westman (1948),140 from pooled
urines of various exhibitions of cancer. It
is recognized that the specific steroidal
hormones of the syncytial trophoblast also
comprise a most important avenue to the
development of a satisfactorydiagnostic
technic. However, these steroidal hormones
have not been studied as intensely as
chorionic gonadotrophin which is now
characterized as a glucoprotein containing
18 per cent acetylglucosaminedigalactose
polysaccharide.
Several cancer
tests relying on the detection of
trophoblastic hormones are now under study
for the purpose of achieving a sufficiently
practical quantitative test for general use.
CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
As a composite
tissue, cancer in its somatic component
represents many diseases; in its constant
malignant component, one disease; and, in
its totality, a local manifestation of a
general disease. Since the perspective of
the clinician is necessarily
anthropomorphic, he sees cancer primarily in
its somatic phase as a series of many
diseases. On the other hand, as Oberling and
Woglom have so aptly phrased it, "To the
experimentalist cancer is one disease and
one disease only."
Both clinician
and experimentalist are generally agreed
that the somatic or anatomical changes
produced by the malignant process are
largely irreversible. Surgical extirpation
or the primarily non-selective cautery of
radiant energy may destroy the composite
tissue of a primary tumor. But the vague
hope for an agent that will cause the
"reversion" of an organized malignant tumor
to normal tissue is scientifically
indefensible. Aside from the physical
destruction of the tumor itself, one primary
factor can contribute to the amelioration of
the effect of the tumor on the host. This is
the growth inhibition or destruction of the
constant malignant component of the tumor.
Selective ablation of the malignant
component will not alter the already
existing somatic dysplasia nor
histologically change the architectonics of
the tumor, except in highly malignant
anaplastic exhibitions. Here the
histological as well as the gross changes
take an expected course: an histological
increase in connective tissue elements with
a palpable increase in fibrosity.
In the
advanced and well organized lesion, the
possible changes are not, as a rule,
dramatic. Were the malignant component
ablated, the somatic component would tend to
persist largely unchanged, or even show a
slight increase in benign tumefaction. Since
none of the cells in a malignant tumor is
per se a "diseased" or pathological cell,
but rather a cell normalto the life-cycle,
cancer does not itself produce any "toxic
effects." Its lethality is eminently a
physical matter involving the normal
behavior of normal trophoblast in a
spatially abnormal relationship.
[Page 168]
Above all,
cancer is a natural phenomenon ultimately
involving the soma in irreversible changes.
To question the results expected from the
selective ablation of the constant malignant
component in a malignant lesion would be to
suggest that, aside from actual tumor
destruction, no malignant tumor has ever
spontaneously regressed, that no highly
anaplastic cancer has even spontaneously
gone into a less malignant scirrhous
exhibition, or that no patient has ever
survived for five years ormore after
exhibiting an inoperable and highly
malignant lesion. It is not necessary to
review here an impressive literature on
spontaneous regression. Much more important
to a sound comprehension of the clinical
implications of the trophoblastic or
unitarian thesis are the thousands of cases
of cancer in which the host is able to
resist and to live with the cancer cells for
years.
What are the
factors---cells, tissues, organs, and their
secretions---contributing to such
resistance? What causes trophoblast in the
pregnant diabetic to overgrow, despite a
normal insulin supplement? Why do the
specific inhibitors to pancreatic
chymotrypsin and trypsin rise with the
increasing malignancy of a growth and
decline following its amelioration? Why is
the small intestine practically immune not
only to primary tumors, but to direct
invasion and metastases as well? Why does
the growth of the invasive, erosive and
metastatic trophoblast of normal gestation
cease and degeneration commence concomitant
with the commencing function of the fetal
pancreas gland? Why does the urinary
excretion of chorionicgonadotrophin fall
concomitantly with the degeneration of the
trophoblast? After more than 99 per cent of
the trophoblast has been removed from the
placenta, why does its size remain
unaffected though its invasive and erosive
properties areentirely lost? Why are
pregnancy trophoblast cells often
indistinguishable histologically from the
somatic cells in the uterine wall of the
pregnant host? Why is it that the removal of
normal pregnancy trophoblast to tissue
culture will result in a fiercely malignant
exhibition of such trophoblast toward all
nontrophoblast cells?*
Any attempt to
implement clinically the trophoblastic or
unitarian thesis should be made in the light
of the answers to these questions.
RADIATION
Were malignant
cells actually selectively susceptible to
radiation, the most malignant exhibitions of
cancer would be the most amenable to
therapy, since they would, then, contain the
highest concentration of radio-sensitive
cells. Chorionepithelioma and malignant
melanoma represent two of the most malignant
exhibitions of cancer, yet they are
radio-resistant. Glioblastoma multiforme and
neurogenic sarcoma are also examples of
highly malignant exhibitions of cancer that
are radio-resistant.
-------
* The answers to these questions reflect the
cogency of Oberling's prediction: "Some day,
perhaps, it will turn out to be one of the
ironies of nature that cancer, responsible
for so many deaths, should be so
indissolubly connected with life."101
[Page 169]
We may
generalize that the malignant component of a
tumor is slightly less radio-resistant than
the somatic connective tissue stroma but
considerably more radio-resistant than the
somatic parenchyma. This is why radiation
often results in an increase in tumor
fibrosity, which would be an excellent sign
were this achieved at the cost of the
radio-resistant malignant component (trophoblast)
rather than at the cost of the somatic
parenchyma. The so-called radio-sensitivity
of a tumor is determined primarily by the
radio-sensitivity of the somatic cells in
which the constant malignant component
happens to reside---not by the uniformly
radio-resistant constant malignant
component: the ectopic trophoblast.
RADIO-ACTIVE ELEMENTS
The most
commonly used radio-active element is that
of iodine in the therapy of cancer of the
thyroid. Rhoads141, 142 describes the
limitations of this therapy as follows:
"The more
malignant and destructive forms tend to pick
up (radio-active iodine) to a lesser and
lesser degree as the invasiveness
increases."
With an
increase in the malignancy of the
exhibition, there is necessarily an increase
in the concentration of the definitively
malignant cells (trophoblast) and a
consequent decrease in somatic thyroid cells
which are the only cells involved in the
selective uptake of radio-active iodine. The
decrease in tumefaction as a result of the
uptake of radio-active iodine is an
expression of the loss of functional somatic
cells. This fact is further demonstrated in
the successful use of this technic in toxic
goiter.
SURGERY
The lower the
concentration of trophoblast cells in a
malignant lesion, the more amenable the
lesion is to successful surgery. For this
reason highly malignant growths like
chorionepithelioma are generally inoperable.
PANCREATIC ENZYME
THERAPY
The palliative
use of the crystalline pancreatic enzymes in
advanced human cancer rests entirely upon
the validity of the unitarian or
trophoblastic thesis of cancer.
CONCLUSION
Our own
studies, too, appear to confirm the
unitarian or trophoblastic thesis of cancer.
The independently proved
uniformities---which increase in degree of
uniformity with the malignancy of the
growth---of malignant lesions in the
concentration of eight water-soluble
vitamins; in vitamin C content; in water
content; in cytochrome-c; in effect on
livercatalase of the host; in Warburg's
criteria of glycolysis; in lactic acid
formation; in sugar content; in the
respiratory response to added substrates; in
a common means of induction; in
antichymotryptic factors; in autonomy,
invasiveness and erosiveness; in ability to
metastasize; in amenability to universal
therapeutic measures; in the general
anticarcinogenic effectof
[Page 170]
caloric
restriction on the incidence of mammary
tumors and leukemia alike in experimental
animals; in eterotransplantability; in loss
of specialized function as malignancy
increases (in all tumors except
chorionepithelioma); in departure from the
histology of the site of origin (except in
primary uterine chorionepitheliomas);*; in
numerous enzymes---all these uniformities,
indeed, exclude any but an unitarian nature
of cancer. Then as we examine the most
malignant exhibition of cancer possible---chorionepithelioma---to
find it comprised of trophoblast cells
indistinguishable cytologically,
endocrinologically or otherwise from those
of normal pregnancy trophoblast, the fact
becomes impelling that if cancer is, indeed,
an unitarianphenomenon all of its properties
must be exemplified in these most primitive
of all cells in the life-cycle, the
trophoblast cells. These cells in their
normal canalization of pregnancy (as well as
in vitro) exhibit every known property of
malignant cells---though normally directed
in pregnancy toward the physiological
exploitation of the truly malignant process
implicit in the embedding of the tissue of
the conceptus into that of the mother.
Then, were all
else evidential of the unitarian or
trophoblastic nature of cancer set aside,
and were there left for scrutiny but the
single fact that primary exhibitions of
trophoblast (chorionepithelioma) are not
infrequently seen that metastasize to an
adenocarcinomatous or sarcomatous
exhibition, and vice versa, then reason
would admit of only one explanation: the
trophoblastic or unitarian fact of cancer.
Were the
cellular counterpart of cancer not an
inextricable component of the life-cycle,
represented in the most primitive cell of
that cycle, the processes of natural
selection themselves would have precluded
the survival of the spontaneously generated
cells that any alternative to the
trophoblastic fact of cancer necessitates.
The unitarian
thesis is not a dogma inflexibly held by its
proponents; it is merely the only
explanation that finds total congruence with
all established facts on cancer. While the
unitarian or trophoblastic thesis seemingly
admits of no alternative, it warrants the
most corrosive scrutiny. For cancer either
is or is not an unitarian phenomenon, and
thereby it is either trophoblastic or not
trophoblastic in nature. The definitive
cancer cell is either the most primitive
cell in the life-cycle or it is not the most
primitive. It is either the result of the
differentiation or meiosis (however
spatially or temporally anomalous) of a cell
or it is not the result of cellular
differentiation. It either has its normal
cellular counterpart in
-------
* These are, indeed, instances in which the
exception proves the rule; for, were cancer
not trophoblastic, its most malignant
exhibition---chorionepithelioma---would then
show the greatest loss of function and the
greatest deviation from the histology of the
site of origin, instead of actually showing
an accentuation in the normal function of
trophoblast, as it does. Yet were one to
attempt to ascribe to the malignant
exhibition of trophoblast some intrinsic but
subtle change from that of the
non-malignantly exhibited trophoblast, such
an attempt would be rendered nugatory by the
fact that the most malignant exhibition of
cancer possible in the male----chorionepithelioma---comprises
trophoblast cells indistinguishable from
those of pregnancy or chorionepithelioma in
the female; yet, in the male
chorionepithelioma represents the widest
possible deviation in histology and function
from the site of origin. The latter fact
corroborates the proof of a rule previously
proved by its exception.
[Page 171]
the
life-cycle, and thus is the result of
cellular differentiation; or it has no
cellular counterpart in the life-cycle, does
not arisethrough cellular differentiation,
and, therefore, is spontaneously created.
The diploid totipotent cells within the
soma, like their normally canalized daughter
cells, can either undergo meiosis and
subsequent trophoblast production, in
response to sufficient organizer stimuli, or
they can not. The occurrence of frank
trophoblast cells within the soma
(invariably as themost malignant exhibition
of cancer) is either the result of the
meiosis of a diploid totipotent cell or it
is not; and, therefore, is the result of a
spontaneous generation. The trophoblast or
the cancer cell either produces specific
inhibitors to pancreatic chymotrypsin and
trypsin, or it does not (and the twenty or
so independent workers how have so reported
are all in error). A malignant tumor is
either a composite tissue or it is not a
composite tissue. The malignancy of a tumor
is either determined by the concentration of
a constant malignant component; or it is not
so determined and depends, therefore, upon
thesuccessive spontaneous generation of a
series of specific cells to account for the
increasing malignant evolution of the tumor.
The
trophoblastic or unitarian thesis holds the
affirmative of all these propositions. It
holds that any alternative to them will
result in a reductio ad absurdum. The
unitarian thesis recognizes the need for an
orderly defined common ground of theory upon
which all workers in cancer may at least
meet, if not agree. It holds as reasonable
the thesis that the more tenable of two
distinctly opposed hypotheses should be
given the greater credence in determining
the direction of future research. It holds
that in the intensive study of the peculiar
metabolism of trophoblast both in pure
cultures and in vivo, with the goal ofthe
selective lysis of the trophoblast cell or
the occlusion of its metabolism, the cancer
problem may find practical resolution. It
holds that the cancer problem need not offer
amnesty to unbridled empiricism and negation
to the most basic tenets of the rational
process.
Above all
else, the trophoblastic or unitarian thesis
urges that the alternative non-trophoblastic
or non-unitarian thesis, which is at present
overwhelmingly the dominant hypothesis, be
scrutinized in the light of whatever
experimental evidence might exist in its
support.* Indeed, the evaluation of any
alternative to the trophoblastic or
unitarian thesis---within the context of
experimental facts and scientific logic---by
those who find the trophoblastic or
unitarian thesis untenable or tenuous143,
144 should prove most instructive. For in
cancer, as in all else, facts do not speak
for themselves but must be spoken for.
-------
*In reviewing over 17,000 papers on cancer
and related biological subjects the senior
author, in the course of his text on "The
Biological Basis of Cancer," has not found a
single valid contribution that fails to find
congruence with, and illumination from the
trophoblastic or unitarian thesis of cancer.
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