Cell loss from viable and necrotic tumour regions measured by 125I-UdR

Loss of cells from vital and necrotic areas of the syngeneic mammary adenocarcinoma EO 771 in male C57 BL/6J mice may be measured by use of 125I-labelled 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuridine (125I-UdR). Later than 50 hr after an intraperitoneal injection of 20 muCi 125I-UdR the incorporated activity of the entire tumour was externally measured and found to decrease with time after injection. The injected amount was neither chemo- nor radiotoxic. By injecting the vital dye 'light green', unstained necrotic and stained viable regions were separately excised and measured for loss of activity throughout the natural development of the labelled tumour. With the appearance of necrotic regions, labelled viable cells became necrotic, and activity was slowly eliminated. With increasing proportions of necrosis during tumour growth, the rate of loss of activity of the whole tumour decreased. Loss of activity from viable tumour regions reflected cell death and exceeded the loss rates of the whole tumour by a factor of 2 to 3. The data show that loss of activity from the whole tumour results from a superposition of different elimination rates of viable and necrotic tumour regions and is not an immediate consequence of cell death in the course of undisturbed tumour development.