To compare the pharmacological advantage of intra-arterial, intraportal and intravenous administration of anticancer drug for metastatic liver tumor, BrdU was administered to rabbits with metastatic liver tumor of VX2 from various routes and taken up into the nuclei of tumor cells. Both one-shot injection and continuous infusion (30 min) of BrdU was performed from celiac artery, portal vein or peripheral vein. In some rabbits, the portal vein or the celiac artery was ligated to form one blood supply to the liver. After the administration of BrdU, the liver was removed. The samples were stained by the immunohistochemical procedure using monoclonal antibody to BrdU. The result was that the drug uptake of small metastatic liver tumor by both arterial and portal one-shot injection was good, and the uptake following intra-arterial injection of BrdU was superior to its intraportal injection in large metastatic tumor. However, only peripheral cells of large tumor took up BrdU after intra-arterial injection and inner cells of large tumor did not take up BrdU after any continuous infusions. The intraportal and intravenous administration of BrdU without ligation of celiac artery had the same effect as its intra-arterial administration.