I concur with the above, although I've done it in the past and had success only because I caught it real early while lashing the valves and noticed that I had gained lash on one valve and the lock nut hadn't loosened up. Inspection of the cam lobe upon removal and it was minor and the lifter was flat, so I rolled the dice and installed a new cam and lifters and didn't have any problems, also I opened up the oil filter and it was clean.
On others that have ran on a rounded lobe and concaved the lifter the engine was full of metal, and you will usually find most of it on the knurls of the piston skirts.
Nowadays I wouldn't chance it, pull it and go through the engine, and while the engines at the machine shop that will give you plenty of time to clean and detail the engine compartment which usually snowballs to other things if you're not careful....
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