Prevention of Liver Metastases by Intravenous Radioisotopes

ONE OF THE MAJOR problems in cancer therapy is the management of established liver metastases. Neither radical surgery, radiation, nor chemotherapy has provided a satisfactory answer to this problem. Recently there has been some interest in the prevention of liver metastasis by the administration of chemotherapeutic agents at the time of resection of the primary tumor.1,2These studies have prompted our interest in the use of prophylactic radiotherapy for the same purpose. The approach used in this laboratory has been the intravenous administration of a therapeutic dose of P32-tagged colloidal chromic phosphate which is concentrated selectively by the liver. The effect of this agent as a means of preventing liver "metastases" has been studied in rats following the injection of tumor cells in the portal vein. Method These studies were performed on female albino Holtzman rats weighing 150 to 200 gm. A rapidly growing tumor, the Novikoff