On the electrical resistance and permeability of tumor tissues

Abstract

Preliminary determinations of the electrical conductivity of primary breast carcinomas in mice (supplied by Mr. Millard C. Marsh) indicate that cancer tissues are more permeable to ions than are normal tissues and that the permeability bears a definite relation to the speed of growth, rapidly growing tumors exhibiting a lower resistance than slowly growing tumors. Similar determinations on plant galls (supplied by Dr. Irvin F. Smith) indicate that plant tumor tissues are uniformly more permeable than normal plant tissues, the tumor tissues frequently exhibiting, under reasonably comparable conditions, a conductivity more than twice that of normal tissues. The observations of McClendon, Gray, etc., that sea urchins'rggs exhibit an increased conductivity during the first stages of development harmonize with the above observations on cancer tissue and lend support to the conclusion previously reached by the writer, as a result of chemical analysis of mouse tumors and blood reactions exhibited in cancer and pregnancy, that both normal and pathological proliferative processes depend upon an increased permeability of the protoplasmic film to water and water-borne food stuffs.

An attempt will be made in the next paper to indicate briefly by means of a physical model, the mechanism whereby changes in protoplasmic permeability may be induced by changes in chemical and physical environment and in a subsequent paper to apply the principles involved to cancer.