Regional measurements of blood flow in experimental RG-2 rat gliomas.

Regional measurements of blood flow (F) were performed in transplanted intracerebral RG-2 rat gliomas using [14C]iodoantipyrine, Kety-Schmidt blood flow equations, and quantitative autoradiography. Twenty-nine intracranial tumors in ten rats were analyzed by location; 18 intraparenchymal, seven meningeal, two third-ventricular, and two fourth-ventricular tumors were studied. For all tumors, averaged mean F was 91 +/- 33 (S.D.) ml/hg/min. In all but one tumor, mean F was intermediate between normal cortex and corpus callosum values. There was moderate regional variation: averaged mean F was lower in tumor center (78 +/- 47 ml/hg/min) than in tumor periphery (93 +/- 30 ml/hg/min). Within individual tumors, F showed moderate variation which correlated to some extent with histological features; a regional F of less than 10 ml/hg/min was observed in only one tumor within an area of necrosis. F in regions of brain immediately surrounding the tumor was higher than in tumor periphery. Blood flow to RG-2 tumors seems unlikely to limit drug delivery any more than to normal brain, and the consistent levels from tumor to tumor and within individual tumors make the RG-2 model an excellent one with which to study drug delivery in experimental brain tumors.