Transient NK Cell Depletion Facilitates Pulmonary Osteosarcoma Metastases After Intravenous Inoculation in Athymic Mice.

Two thirds of metastatic osteosarcoma patients die within 5 years of diagnosis. Improved experimental models of osteosarcoma metastasis will facilitate the development of more effective therapies. Intravenous cancer cell injection can produce lung metastases in nude mice, but this "experimental metastasis" technique has been predominantly applied to a single osteosarcoma cell line (143B) and required injection of 1-2 million cells.