Relationship between fatty liver and liver metastasis in rats given injection of rat colon cancer cell line.
OBJECTIVE
In a previous study we described that colorectal cancer patients with fatty liver had few liver metastases. To clarify whether this clinical finding is correct, we studied whether rats with fatty liver had infrequent liver metastases using experimental colon cancer.


METHODS
Twenty male inbred F344/DuCrj rats (CLEA JAPAN Inc.), 8 weeks of age, were used in this study. These 20 rats were divided into two groups: Fatty liver group (FL group, n = 10) and Non-fatty liver group (NFL group, n = 10). 1.0 ml of tumor-cell suspension containing 1 x 10(7) RCN-9 cells was injected just under the capsule of the spleen. All animals were sacrificed 2 weeks after tumor inoculation.


RESULTS
1) Four rats out of 10 in the FL group (40%) had at least one metastatic nodule on the surface of the liver, while there were 10 rats with metastatic nodules in the NFL group (100%) (p < 0.01). 2) The ratio of the liver metastasis area against the largest section of the left lobe of the lateral segment (RLML) was examined. The average RLML of the FL group was 0.45%, which was significantly lower than that of the NFL group (7.11%) (p < 0.0001).


CONCLUSIONS
Rats with fatty liver seldom had liver metastases compared to normal rats. This means that fatty liver itself can possibly bring about situations with infrequent liver metastases.
Tamura
R
R
Third Department of Surgery, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Masuda
H
H
Ishii
Y
Y
Nemoto
N
N
D000818:Animals; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology; D005234:Fatty Liver / Q000150:complications*; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000150:complications* / Q000556:secondary*; D008297:Male; D009368:Neoplasm Transplantation; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured