Figure 1.

Presence of hospicells, cancer cells, and immune cells in ascitic cell clusters.

(A) Cancer ascites contain hospicells that provide support to floating cancer cells, shown in vitro when ascites was cultured in DMEM. Stromal cells attach to the plastic earlier than the other types of cells and can be seen adherent starting from day 1 after in vitro culture.

(B) Several kinds of immune cells were found in different ascites collected from nine ovarian cancer patients, suggesting strong presence of the immune system in the cancer microenvironment, especially the presence of monocytes-macrophages.