Studies on the distribution of blood flow in amelanotic melanoma and reticulum cell lymphosarcoma during growth.

SUMMARY The distribution of intravenously administered ‘69Ybmicro spheres, 88RbCl, and a vital staining dye has been examined in amelanotic melanoma and reticulum cell lymphosarcoma of the hamster. The intensity of the dye stain within the tumor tissue was proportional to the uptake of the isotopic indicators by the tissue. Intensely stained tumor tissue has a significantly greater uptake of ‘89Ybmicrospheres and 86Rb than the unstained tumor tissue. The quantity of intensely stained tumor tissue varied with tumor type and size. In amelanotic melanoma, the total amount of intensely stained tumor tissue reached a maximum and remained nearly constant with increasing age. Further increase in tumor weight was due to an expanding central core of unstained tumor tissue which comprised approximately 82% of the total tumor mass. The uptake of dye in reticulum cell lymphosarcoma was uniform in all small tumors. The amount of intensely stained viable tumor continued to increase in size during growth. In the large reticulum cell lymphosarcomas, stained tumor com prised 87% of the total tumor weight.