Divergent effects of flavone acetic acid on established versus developing tumour blood flow.

Flavone Acetic Acid (FAA) exerts much of its effect by reducing tumour blood flow. Previous studies on FAA-induced changes in blood flow have used established tumours with a functional microvasculature. Using radioactive Xenon(133Xe) clearance to monitor local blood flow we show that the effects of FAA are dependent on the presence of this functional microvasculature with no evidence that FAA inhibits the actual development of tumour microcirculation. Thus, administration of multiple doses of FAA around the time of tumour cell injection failed to diminish t1/2 values of 133Xe (e.g. t1/2 16 min for FAA vs 14 min for saline controls at 10 days) or to affect tumour volumes (5.55 +/- 0.06 cm3 in FAA-treated animals vs 5.7 +/- 1.3 cm3 in controls at 25 days). In marked contrast a single dose of FAA (200 mg kg-1 body weight) 2 weeks after tumour cell injection dramatically extended t1/2 times (47 min for FAA vs 7 min for controls; P less than 0.001) and significantly reduced tumour burden. This effect is specific for tumour microvasculature and is not directed simply at new vessels since a similar treatment of animals with implanted-sponge-induced granulation tissue had no effect on t1/2 times (6.8 +/- 1.1 min for FAA at 200 mg kg-1 vs 7.2 +/- 1.0 min for saline-treated controls.