CANCER ANAEMIA 



599 



have been able to prove anaemia in three-quarters of the leukaemia or 

 advanced cancer cases which they have studied, even when taking into 

 account the blood volume. Since bleeding was non-existent in these 

 patients there was no visible haemolytic anaemia or anaemia due to 

 defective nourishment, and the anaemia was clearly attributable to 

 curtailment of the life-time of the red blood corpuscles. It has repeatedly 

 been demonstrated that the life-time of red blood corpuscles is often 

 curtailed in cancer and leukaemia. Berlin and his co-workers^"^ observed 



6.0 



5.0 



c- 4,0 



E 

 o 

 ^ 2,0 



1.0 



• Cancer 



o Control 



_L. 



15 20 25 



Days after concor inoculation 



30 



Fig. 2. Concentration of plasma protein in normal and cancerous 



mice. 



a life-time of only 18 days for the red blood corpuscles in a patient suffer- 

 ing from leukaemia instead of the 120 days in a healthy subject. In these 

 studies the erythrocytes were labelled with i*C. Glycine labelled with 

 1^0 was given to the patient. For some days there was a decided incorpo- 

 ration of i^(y' into the haemoglobin, but this later decreased to a very 

 low value. In these investigations the erythrocytes formed in the course 

 of the early days, were mainly labelled with i*C. This is the best method 

 of labelling the red blood corpuscles, but it is only rarely applied in cli- 

 nical studies because one is unwilling to introduce long-lived radioactive 

 substances into the human organism. It is true that, after the addition 

 of 100 jUG of glycocoll-2-i^C, which is sufficient for a determination of 

 the life-time, the body is only exposed to a radiation dose of 37 mrep 

 during the first 3 months and later to a steadily decreasing radiation^^^^ 

 The incorporation of ^^C into skeleton is very small. In experiments with 

 mice, in our laboratory, Zacharias found that only 1/20,000 of the 

 injected glycine-2-i4C was present in the skeleton after 6 months had 

 elapsed. The radiation dose given to the patient is therefore quite small. 

 A far more serious clinical disadvantage of the method, however, is that 

 blood samples must be taken from the patient through a period of several 



