Abstract
The control 21 C3H female mice, aged 1 -2 years, had neither nodular hyperplasia nor adenoma in the adrenal cortex. Intravenous injection of 5 mg of DMBA-emulsion failed to cause any immediate acute toxic effects on the adrenals of 8 C3H female mice aged 45days. In the 35 C3H female mice, injected singly by 2,5 mg of DMBA-emulsion at the age of 45,52 or 59 days,2 cases of type A cell adenoma of the adrenal cortex and 1of the same cell hyperplasia were detected at the age of 11-15 months. The electronmicrographs of the tumor cells looked to be the undifferentiated subcapsular mesenchymal cells of the adrenal gland. Any type B cell adenoma or hyperplasia was not recognized, in the same experimental group, but 1 adrenocortical calcification, following by an acute necrosis, was found.
Ovariectomy of all 3 C3H mice at the age of 43 days led to the bilateral type B cell hyperplasia at the age of 10 months, but no adrenal tumors appeared in the same mice. Four female C3H mice out of 7 survivors, received with ovariectomy at the age of 43days and with single intravenous injection of 2.5 mg of DMBA-emulsion 2 days later, had unilateral type B cell adenoma at the age of 10 months.
In berief, DMBA would hardly have acute necrotizing effect on the adrenocortical cells of C3H female mice, but it could cause a neoplastic transformation in them. Ovariectomy or presenile changes evoked by DMBA would accerelate the development of the adrenocortical tumor.
