Recent findings show that the three commonly used esophageal cancer lines for research are confirmed to be from other cancers. This was published as a brief communication published online January 14 on the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Two of these cell lines have been used in 11 US patents and more than 100 published studies. The established 13 esphageal adenocarcinoma cell lines are essential since they have a limited availability of patient samples and animal models.

Winand N. M. Dinjens, Ph. D., and colleagues used data, to determine the authencity of all available cell lines, from pathology archives and genotyping assays in relation with the primary investigators who established the cell lines.

The authors write, “Experimental results based on these contaminated cell lines have led to ongoing clinical trials recruiting [esophageal adenocarcinoma] patients, to more than 100 scientific publications, and to at least three National Institutes of Health cancer research grants and 11 U. S. patents, which emphasizes the importance of our findings. Widespread use of contaminated cell lines threatens the development of treatment strategies for [esophageal adenocarcinoma].”