Radio-iron uptake of rat hepatoma

Iron uptake rate of the tumor tissues of the rat liver was compared with that of the nontumor tissues of the same rat liver. Ferric[59Fe] citrate was injected to rats bearing hepatoma induced by the administration of diethylnitrosamine. The tumor and nontumor tissues were enucleated from the liver and radioactivity (cpm/10 mg tissue) of the individual tissue was calculated to estimate the iron uptake rate of the tissue. Eleven rats were finally available for the study. Population mean of radioactivity of the tumor group was larger than that of the nontumor group when examined 6 hr after the injection, so far as the specimens of both groups were sufficient in number, more than 19. The variance of radioactivity of the tumor group was always larger than that of the nontumor group, probably in part due to cytological and histological varieties of the tumor tissues. These results suggest that the tumor tissues can take up more iron than the nontumor tissues.