Further Studies of the Effect of Radiation on Blood Cholesterol in Malignant Disease

Abstract

A review of the recent literature leaves the reader in a quandary as to the ultimate action of irradiation on the cholesterol content of the blood in vivo. In a previous paper Mattick and Buchwald (1) reported preliminary investigations in a series of cancer patients where the blood sampling was done at intervals varying from three to 24 hours. In practically all cases there was a marked fall in the cholesterol level as compared with the pre-irradiation value as noted by them. This finding was in accord with researches of Luden (2) and the work of Roffo (3), Correa (4), and Griot (5) but out of harmony with the interesting work by Levy-Dorn and Burgheim (6). These writers demonstrated a rise of cholesterol values in the blood of cancer patients after radiation and the opposite in non-cancerous cases or in those cancer cases where the growth had been completely removed by surgery. In a later paper, Burgheim (7) confirmed his previous finding but asserted that this rise in the cholesterol level of the blood of cancer patients was only transient and might easily be overlooked unless the blood sampling was done at least at one-half hour intervals. In previous work by one of us (1) the sampling had been done not oftener than at three hour intervals and it is easily possible that the above objection of Burgheim might be valid. To this end it was decided to study the blood of an additional series of cancer patients before and after x-ray treatment. Patients were chosen who were to receive quite an extensive dosage and who had been fasting four or more hours before the first blood sampling. As previously stated (1) such a period was conceded by Denis (8) to assure a fairly constant cholesterol value from which to draw conclusions.