606 



ADVENTURES IN RADIOISOTOPE RESEARCH 



patients, the iron metabolism in the plasma will be under greater strain. 

 A lower level of plasma iron will be established if more iron is discharged 

 from the plasma than is yielded by the supplying organs. The organism, 

 however, is capable of compensating, within a wide range, for the lower 

 level of iron by an accelerated output of iron. This is shown in Fig. 7, 

 ivhich is taken from work performed by Dal Santo in our laboratory 

 in which he studied women, suffering from cancer of the cervix, who 

 were patients of the Kottmeier Clinic at the Radiumhemmet, Stockholm; 



c 



e 



K^ 



40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 

 ^g iron in 100 mL plasma 



Fig. 7. The decline of plasma iron, labelled with ^^Fe, as a function 

 of the iron concentration in the plasma. 



the method applied was that due to Huff and co-workers^^®^ In several 

 cases the iron moves too rapidly and the T ^/g values turn out too low. 

 When more prolific bleeding can be excluded, such a result is a very plaus- 

 ible indirect proof of the curtailment of the life-time of erythrocytes. 

 In order to compensate for a curtailment of the life-time of the erythro- 

 cytes by about one-fourth of their normal value, it would be necessary 

 to add the same extra amount of iron as that which would compensate 

 a chronic bleeding of about 10 ml/day. 



In a series of cases (Fig. 7), the iron moves too slowly and the T^j^- 

 values are too high. All of these patients were anaemic. Ross and Mil- 

 LER^-^^^ in a study of twenty-eight severe cases, found twelve with a super- 

 normal and only three with a subnormal iron metabolism. In nearly half 

 of the cases investigated there was a definitely detectable curtailment 

 of the erythrocyte life-time. 



