Blood Cholesterol Studies in Cancer: IV. With Special Reference to Other Lipoid Partitions

Abstract

Researches on the lipoid partitions of the blood in health and disease have previously been reported by many investigators especially by Bloor (1) (2), Bloor and MacPherson (3), Knudson (4), Sestini (5), and Oser and Karr (6). Few have applied this research to the study of cancer. Bloor (1) reported the findings in five cancer cases; Sestini (6) the total cholesterol and fatty acids only, on the serum of 30 cases. Recently Byron and Kay (7) have attempted to verify the Grobly quotient in 28 cases of malignant disease. As the later authors did not determine blood volume, their work cannot be correlated with either that of the above mentioned writers or with the work which we are here presenting. A general survey of the work of those previously mentioned clearly demonstrates that even normal values have not been definitely assigned to the various lipoidal partitions of the blood, a fact which has been noted by Oser and Karr (6). It, therefore, seemed to us that a plan, as originally suggested by Bloor, where the blood volume, lecithin, total fats and cholesterols were separately determined from the whole blood and plasma, would offer most interesting prospects for study in an unselected group of cancer cases and as this had not been done by previous workers mentioned on any large enough series of such cases we hope that a report on 21 cancer patients and 10 healthy controls may be of some interest.