Stimulation of human prostatic carcinoma cell growth by factors present in human bone marrow.

Malignant prostatic carcinoma, a major cause of cancer mortality in males, most often metastasizes to secondary sites in bone. Frequently, the growth rate of the secondary tumor in bone marrow is considerably greater than that of the slowly growing primary prostatic tumor. We now report that two lines of human prostatic carcinoma cells proliferate in response to conditioned media from unstimulated human, rat, or bovine bone marrow.