SPREAD OF CANCER CELLS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO CHEMOTHERAPY

Free cancer cells can be identified in the circulating blood by removing the erythrocytes with a heparin-fibrinogen mixture, centrifuging the plasma, and examining smears made from the buffy coat. In a series of 179 patients with advanced cancer, one-half of the samples of peripheral blood studied in this way yielded recognizable tumor cells. These metastasizing cells with diameters of 10 to 30 μ could deform and pass through apertures less than 10 μ in diameter and hence could traverse capillar