Blood pyruvate in malignant neoplastic disorders.

A moderate and statistically significant elevation of blood pyruvate levels, determined by an enzymatic method, was found in 60 patients with various malignant neoplastic disorders as compared with 20 control subjects. Studied were 42 cases of metastatic carcinoma, including 14 in which there were hepatic metastases and 18 cases of leukemia and lymphoma. No significant statistical difference was found when the values for the patients with malignant disease were compared with those found for a group of patients with non-neoplastic liver disorders.