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Chemical Characteristics and Varying Degrees of Malignancy in Tumors of the Human Ovary

I. Oxygen Consumption and Lactic Acid Production^*

( Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and of Biochemistry, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.)

1. The Q_O2's and Q_LA's of a number of human ovarian papillary serous tumors have been determined and found to correlate apparently with histologically determined grades of malignancy. Similar correlation was found for the oxygen consumption of human ovarian pseudomucinous tumors. According to the present system of histological grading for cervical tumors, on the other hand, no correlation was evident for either the Q_O2's or Q_LA's. The Q_O2 and Q_LA values of a group of miscellaneous gynecological tumors are also reported.

2. Calculation of the molecules of glucose fermentation/molecules of glucose oxidized for ovarian papillary serous tumors has provided some correlation with malignancy; higher values indicating more glycolysis were obtained for the malignant tumors. This calculation eliminated the error in the metabolic results caused by variation in the epithelium to stroma ratio. Inconclusive results were obtained by this calculation on pseudomucinous and cervical tumors.

3. Ovarian papillary serous tumors and a small group of other gynecological tumors were found to have Respiratory Quotients, Lactic Acid Production, Pasteur Effect, and Fermentation Excess which were within the range of values obtained for animal tumors. A few discrepancies were obtained with the values of the Meyerhof Quotient.

^* This investigation was supported in part by Grant #215 from the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund.

Received 3/25/57.