Target organ patterns of tumors in mice following the arterial dissemination of B16 melanoma cells.

The arrest of B16 melanoma cells and the subsequent development of tumors have been studied following left intraventricular injections (LVI) into mice of radiolabelled and unlabelled cells respectively; the proportions of cardiac output going to different target organs were also determined by LVI of radiolabelled microspheres. B16 cell arrest in the various target organs was as predicted by relative arterial blood supply, except in the lungs and liver where more radioactive counts were detected than could be accounted for in terms of initial arterial dissemination alone; and the numbers of counts remaining in all organs after 24 h were related to the numbers of counts initially obtained. When the incidence of tumor-bearing organs was related to the cell arrest patterns, the organs could be divided into two major distinct groups. Within both of these groups, the patterns of tumor incidence were correlated with cancer cell delivery. These results on a model system suggest that the two major hypotheses used to account for metastatic patterns are not mutually exclusive: the "soil" effect divides the target organs into the two major groups; however, within these groups the incidence of tumors is explicable in terms of the "mechanical" hypothesis.