Comparison of the proliferative and clonogenic growth capacity of wound fluid from breast cancer patients treated with and without intraoperative radiotherapy

The ability of the cellular microenvironment to influence cell behavior has been known for quite some time. In malignancies, the microenvironment was shown to regulate tumor cell fate even suggesting that disruption of its homeostasis may drive tumor progression (1). Induction of the wound healing response after surgery with the ensuing microenvironment reorganization and tissue reconstruction may, therefore, potentially influence recurrence (2). After damage, wound healing, including inflammation, tissue repair, and remodeling, is essential to ensure host integrity in multicellular eukaryotic organisms (3). As previously shown in experimental systems (4,5), it is to be expected that growth factors secreted during wound healing can also affect growth of malignant and non-malignant cells clinically. It was previously observed that wound fluid (drained after surgery; WF) collected from breast cancer patients can indeed stimulate proliferation of breast cancer cells (6)