Abstract
Present study was carried out to obtain simple and considerably accuratemethod for measuring mammary duct areas in mice treated with estrogen.
Normal and gonadectomized Kasukabe mice in both sexes were injected onfive occasions subcutaneously with total dose of 12.5 I.U.of synthetic estrogenfrom 20 days old.On the 35th day mice were killed and the third thoracicmammary glands were prepared by whole mount method.Preparations wereenlarged on section paper and such four methods as A) Index of mammaryduct area method, B) Planimeter method, C) Calipers method-1, and D) Calipersmethod-2 were used to compare the properties of four measuring methods.Results obtained are as follows.
1.Planimeter method is comparatively reliable among B), C) and D) method.
2.There are close associations between mammary duct areas measured byA) and B) method.Correlation coefficients are 0.85 in female, 0.95 in castratedfemale, 0.94 in male and 0.77 in castrated male.
3.The differences of mammary duct areas between normal and gonadectomizedgroup are not significant in each sex but the difference between sexes issignificant statistically.When normal and gonadectomized group's data in eachsex are combined, means with fiducial limits by B) method are 175.3±4.6 infemale and 179.8±8.2 in male when the mammary duct areas measured by A) method in each sex are placed as standards respectively.
