The Movement of Water in Tumor Tissue Removed from the Body

When immersed in water cells of hepatomas produced by p-dimethyl-aminoazobenzene (butter yellow) take in less water than liver cells from which they are derived and more rapidly undergo disintegration; cholangiomas produced by butter yellow undergo similar changes. As a result of the injury of the tumor cells by water the osmotic exchange, characteristic of the normal liver cells under the same conditions, is impaired within the initial half hour of immersion. Solutions of sodium chloride isotonic for hepatoma tissue have a concentration approximating 0.16 molar and for cholangioma, 0.2 molar, whereas solutions isotonic for normal liver tissue approximate 0.34 molar. Water exchange of hepatoma and of cholangioma tissue in solutions of sodium chloride of various concentrations deviates from a proportional relation to the concentration more than does normal liver tissue under the same conditions. Water exchange of sarcoma of the subcutaneous tissue produced by benzpyrene when immersed in water resembles that of interstitial fibrous tissue of normal animals, but by the procedures that have been used water exchange of the tumor cells alone has not been measurable. Microscopic examination indicates that the sarcoma cells are as susceptible to injury as those of the other tumors that have been examined. Intake of water by adenofibromas of the subcutaneous tissue is apparently dominated by changes in the dense stroma of the tumor and has the anomalous character of intake bycompact fibrous tissue of the corium of the skin and of the wall of the aorta.