The influence exerted by desoxycorticosterone acetate upon the production of adrenal tumors in gonadectomized mice.

Nodular hyperplasia or adenomas have been shown to develop in the adrenal glands of certain strains of mice, notably CBA, DBA, BALB, NH, and A, after the removal of their gonads (5, 7, 8, 13, @1). These changes were usually accompanied by the elaboration of either estrogenic or andro genic hormones or both (3, 6). In CE mice, car cinomas developed in 100 per cent of the females and in 97 per cent of the males (4, 14, 16, 18, @). Such tumors have been successfully transplanted to mice of the same or F1 hybrid strains (@0). Stimulation of the uterus, the vagina, and the mammary glands (4, 6, 14, 15, 17), and the appear ance of cornified cells in vaginal smears (7) were accepted as evidence that estrogenic hormones had been produced; and changes in the submaxillary glands and in Bowman's capsules in the kidneys and stimulation of seminal vesicles and prostate glands were accepted as evidence that androgens had been elaborated (4, 6, 14, 15, 17). Diethylstilbestrol (19), testosterone propionate, androstanediol, or 17-methyl androstanediol (11) inhibited the adrenal changes which developed upon gonadectomy, whereas progesterone and other steroids were found to be ineffective. Cortical adenomas were produced in oophorec tomized C3H mice when the animals were placed upon a calorie-restricted diet, but estrogens were not elaborated (1). Gonadotrophin (10) or adreno corticotrophin (9) did not incite estrogenic stimu lation in calorie-restricted animals. Hyperplasia of the pituitary glands,. with changes in the baso philic cells, developed in certain mice observed for