Detection of extrahepatic cancer by alterations in hepatic functions

Signs of the biochemical undifferentiation of the liver of rats carrying various subcutaneous neoplasms include progressive decreases in cytochrome c reductase which were paralleled by increases in the duration of hexobarbital hypnosis. The sleeping time, proportional to the size of the mammary carcinomas or fibrosarcomas, reverted to normal within 10 days after the complete resection of these tumors, but not if regrowth occurred. Decreases in the histologically normal liver of hepatic ornithine aminotransferase, glucokinase. alanine aminotransferase, and cytochrome c reductase, and increases in hexokinase, were also reversible, and reflected sensitively upon the success or incompleteness of tumor eradication. Enzymic and consequent functional alterations in the uninvolved liver in response to the systemic action of neoplasms thus offer new approaches to the detection and prognosis of cancer.