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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Tumor Blood Flow and O2 Availability during Hemodilution

subject

description

An insufficient and heterogeneously distributed nutritive blood flow leads to an inadequate and nonuniform supply of O2 and substrates in many solid tumors (Vaupel, 1977, 1979, 1982). This deterioration of the supply conditions, which already occurs in very early growth stages and which is superimposed by a deterioration of diffusive transport during advanced growth stages, is paralleled by a decrease in the therapeutic efficacy of various cancer treatment modalities such as irradiation and chemotherapy with antiproliferative drugs. In the case of anticancer drugs, the efficiency may be reduced by affecting both pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. In the latter case this is due to the development of a nutritional depletion, to the existence of tissue hypoxia or even anoxia and to the presence of severe tissue acidosis. One way to overcome this problem may be the use of a controlled hemo-dilution. Therefore, we investigated the effect of hemo-dilution on tumor blood flow (TBF).