The shedding of viable cells into the local lymph by tumours growing in the gut of rats.

Suspensions of syngeneic sarcoma cells were injected into the Peyer's patches of rats from which the mesenteric nodes had been removed. By later cannulating the thoracic duct of such rats it was possible to collect peripheral intestinal lymph that had come directly from the tumour bearing area without being filtered through a regional node. The number of viable tumour cells in the lymph coming from the tumours was monitored by culturing the whole lymph cells in a limiting dilution assay. The tumours grew to a diameter of approximately 1 cm in 25 days and during this time tumour cells were present in the lymph at a ratio of approximately 1 tumour cell per 10(5) lymph cells. In euthymic rats this number declined as the immune response developed. In athymic rats the number increased by approximately 10 fold during the experiments. It was concluded that the shedding of viable cells parallels the linear, not the volumetric dimensions of the tumour.