Abstract
Recent studies from this hospital have demonstrated that the livers of patients with gastro-intestinal cancer almost uniformly are infiltrated with fat. 1 In contrast to this finding, normal fat contents were found in the livers of 11 patients with carcinoma of the gastro-intestinal tract who each received 8 g of lipocaic† during the night prior to laparotomy. The average hepatic fat concentration of this latter group was only 0.46 that of the control untreated patients. 2
Lipocaic, however, is a crude mixture which contains significantly large amounts of choline and inositol,† both of which are lipotropic alone. 3 , 4 In experimental animals, the lipotropic effects of lipocaic apparently are not due to its choline alone, 5 and this observation has been confirmed here for human subjects. 2 On the other hand, when about 4 times the amount of inositol present in the 8 g of lipocaic was administered to a group of 8 patients with gastro-intestinal cancer, with but one exception the concentrations of fat in their livers were found to be within normal limits. The average lipid value was 0.42 that of the control group.
Because it seemed probable then that the inositol alone might account for the physiologic effects of the lipocaic, another group of 10 patients with carcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract was given during the last 10 preoperative hours only that amount of inositol (280 mg) contained in the effective dose of lipocaic. The clinical and chemical methods used have been described in a preceding communication of this series. 1 The results obtained from the ingestion of the smaller amounts of inositol indicate that in the patients studied, the lipotropic properties of the lipocaic could be accounted for by its content of inositol alone (Tables I and II). Of the values of hepatic lipid, only one was significantly elevated, and the average of the group was only 0.50 that of the control group.
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