FERROKINETICS IN NORMAL PERSONS AND IN PATIENTS HAVING VARIOUS ERYTHROPOIETIC DISORDERS 1

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Abstract
The kinetics of intraven. Fe59-globulin IV-7 in tracer doses were observed by external scintillation counting over marrow, liver, and spleen as well as by in vitro analysis of plasma and erythrocyte radioactivity. Thirty patients and 7 normal subjects were studied. The quantity of tracer in the plasma and red cells was plotted as a function of time; and the relative counting rates representing the other 3 compartments (marrow, liver and spleen), free from the counting rate contributed by blood, were plotted in a similar manner. In order to assess the significance of a tissue counting rate, a survey of the torso was made when the combined plasma and erythrocyte level was minimal. Polar coordinate plots of the relative counting rates of 6 cross-sectional torso levels indicated the relation of the spleen, liver, or marrow counting rates to those over the remainder of the body. The kinetics were remarkably uniform in young male adults. The tissue of major importance in depleting the plasma of the tracer was the bone marrow. The time required for the plasma depletion was quite uniform. This major initial transient accumulator, the bone marrow, was observed simultaneously to discharge the tracer as it appeared in the circulating erythrocytes. A minor initial transient accumulation occurred in the liver. This was seen to feed back into the major pathway: plasma, to marrow, to red cells. In the patients abnormalities in the initial direction or destination as well as in velocity were observed.