Cancer dormancy: Studies of the murine BCL₁ lymphoma

Dormancy in the murine BCL₁ lymphoma can be induced by several strategies including cytoreductive therapy of mice with large tumor burdens and challenge of allogeneic chimeric mice or idiotype-immunized mice with BCL₁ tumor. Dormant tumor cells were isolated from the spleens of the chimeric mice and the majority were shown to be noncycling. In idiotype-immunized mice that had lost dormancy, tumor growth occurred at a relatively rapid rate. A proportion of idiotype-immunized mice that had lost dormancy spontaneously regressed and then again relapsed; in these mice, the serum antiidiotypic levels were inversely related to the tumor burden.