CO2 environment influences the growth of cultured human cancer cells dependent on insufflation pressure.

Background Experimental and clinical studies, have suggested that the CO2 pneumoperitoneum influences the development of intraabdominal tumor dissemination and port site metastases. Previous experiments performed both in vitro and in vivo have proved that CO2 insufflation stimulates malignant cell growth. Therefore, we designed a study to investigate the influence of CO2 insufflation administered at different pressures on the growth of cultured human tumor cells.