This was surprising because Dr. Murchelano had found a 3.4 percent incidence of 
neoplasia but no gross lesions in a sample of fish in upper Narragansett Bay and New 
Haven Harbor, I believe. He also subsequently found one fish out of 77 taken off Salem 
Harbor to have the same neoplasia. I do not believe that any other estuary along the U.S. 
East Coast has a higher incidence of carcinoma in fish than has been shown by these two 
samples from Boston Harbor. 
We conducted further sampling in January 1985 and obtained only 13 fish, principally 
because the winter flounder were in deep water outside the Harbor at the time and were 
not available to sampling gear within the Harbor. One of these 13 fish had neoplasia. We 
sampled an additional 36 fish on March 14, 1985. Sixty-four percent of the March 14 
sampling displayed gross lesions and 42 percent had hepatic neoplasia. 
Because tomcod have displayed hepatic carcinoma in the Hudson River, we 
examined tomcod from the Weir River which drains into Boston Harbor. We sent 54 livers 
to Dr. Murchelano from samples taken in January 1985, and we found no gross liver lesions 
nor neoplasia in tomcod. The tomcod is basically a year-round, brackish water resident in 
the estuary, usually confined to depths of less than 20 feet. Remaining in the mouths of 
the small tributaries that drain into Boston Harbor, the tomcod possibly would be subject 
to some of the same environmental conditions that the winter flounder are, except that it 
has different feeding habits and much shorter life span. 
We were also able to look at 16 of the winter flounder at random from the second 
sampling in Boston Harbor collected on June 26, 1984. We analyzed both the flesh and the 
livers separately for presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to get a comparison of 
what the levels might be in both the flesh and the livers. The analyses of the flesh showed 
a range from nondetectable PCB concentrations to a level of 1.6 parts per million (ppm), 
with an average of 0.4 ppm. However, livers from the same fish ranged from 5.1 ppm of 
PCBs to a high of 19.9 ppm of PCBs, with a mean of 10.4 ppm. 
Another area where in concert with Dr. Murchelano, we have looked for neoplasia, is 
New Bedford Harbor. On May 15, 1984, we collected 25 winter flounder and 24 
windowpane flounder from New Bedford Harbor. We felt that because New Bedford 
Harbor is highly contaminated with PCBs, the flounder might display the same symptoms. 
However, according to Dr. Murchelano, there were no gross liver lesions in any of the 
windowpane or winter flounder, and no neoplasia in any of those fish. It should be noted, 
however, that a sample collected in May 1985 revealed some winter flounder with hepatic 
necrosis, which was non-neoplastic. 
Briefly, the cause of neoplasia in winter flounder is unknown, but the possibility 
exists that polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), PCBs or synergistic action between 
several chemicals, including heavy metals, may prove to be involved. The only similar 
instance is in Puget Sound on the West Coast, where neoplasia in English sole and crabs 
occurred for about five years. Dr. Malins from the Seattle NMFS Laboratory has 
statistically related that situation to the high incidence of PAHs in the sediments of 
Puget Sound. The PAH contamination is caused by a military fuel depot and a creoste 
manufacturing plant. 
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