Dominick John McIntyre1, Franklyn Arron Howe2,
Christophe Ladroue2, Fiona Lofts2, Marion Stubbs1,
John Richard Griffiths1
1CRUK Cambridge Research Institute, Li
Ka Shing Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom; 2St George's,
University of London, United Kingdom
We
have applied 19F MRS to measure the pharmacokinetics of 5FU metabolism in the
livers of 32 patients with colorectal cancer. 15 of the subjects had liver
metastases. 5FU half-lives ranged from 4 to 15 minutes and were not
significantly different between patients with and without liver metastases.
In the group with metastases, high levels of toxic fluoronucleotides,
primarily produced in tumour cells, were associated with poorer survival.
This may be due to higher metastatic load giving higher concentrations of
fluoronucleotides and poorer survival.