The leakage of plasma albumin across small vessel walls during bleomycin treatment.

To characterize the toxic side-effects of bleomycin physiologically, pulmonary function, transcapillary escape rate of albumin, plasma volume and intravascular mass of albumin were determined prior to and during combination chemotherapy including cisplatin, vinblastine and bleomycin in 11 patients with stages I and II embryonal carcinoma of the testis. Though the patients received the maximum tolerable dose of bleomycin (270 mg/m2), no change of the lung function was observed. Pretherapeutic subnormal values of the intravascular mass of albumin were normalized during treatment. The transcapillary escape rate was unaffected. It is concluded that the overall leakiness of the microvasculature does not change during bleomycin treatment. It is hypothesized that the function abnormalities of the vessels known to be induced by bleomycin are mainly confined to the lungs and only to a moderate degree to the skin, rather than being general in character.