Acute necrosis of adrenal cortex and corpora lutea induced by 7,12-dimethylbenzanthracene and its implication in carcinogenesis.

Since the discovery of carcinogenic polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in 1930 (@0), numerous at tempts have been made to correlate the carcino genicity of these compounds with their chemical structure. When methylcholanthrene, a highly carcinogenic polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon, was synthesized in the laboratory from bile acids (7), the possibility arose that cancer may be caused by carcinogens originating in the body through abnormal metabolism of sterols. The laboratory conditions under which the transformation of ster ols to methylcholanthrene takes place, however, are drastic and unphysiological, and all attempts to demonstrate similar transformation in vivo have failed. Meanwhile, the important question of the rela tionsbip between the carcinogenic activity of poly nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and their structure was studied by a different approach, that of cor *Thisstudywassupported by research grant(C-5894) from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Public Health Service. t Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.