Metaplasia of Uterine Epithelium Produced by Chronic strin Administration

Abstract

THE synthesis of polycyclic compounds possessing both “strogenic and carcinogenic properties¹, the finding of considerable amounts of “strin in cancerous tissue² and in the blood of tumour-bearing male mice³, and the demonstration in various ways of a correlation between the amount of “strin present in the body and the incidence of spontaneous mammary carcinoma (in susceptible strains of mice)⁴ have led many students to suspect an interrelationship between epithelial growths and the female sex hormone. Metaplasia from columnar to stratified epithelium in the seminal vesicles and coagulating glands of male mice and rats treated with “strin has been noted^5,6,7, but analogous effects in female animals have not been reported. Overholser and Allen⁸ have found that treatment with “strin and corpus luteum hormone enhances the atypical epithelium proliferation produced by traumatisation of the cervix uteri in monkeys; but since this proliferation occurred in a region in which squamous epithelium is normally present, it cannot be said whether metaplasia occurred or not.