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The Effect of Steroids on Methylcholanthrene-induced Subcutaneous Tumors in C3H and BALB/c Mice^*

Philip C. Merker, Tsuneo Baba and Kenneth Singer

Division of Human Tumor Experimental Chemotherapy, Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, and Sloan-Kettering Division, Cornell University Medical College, New York, N.Y.

Tumors were induced in mice with 20-methylcholanthrene for the purpose of studying the anti-cancer activity of steroids. Repeated subcutaneous injections of 20-methyl-cholanthrene (MC) were used to induce sarcomas in two strains of mice, BALB/c males and C3H/Jax females. Over 80 per cent of the BALB/c and 100 per cent of the C3H mice developed tumors within 90 days after the start of carcinogen injections.

When tumor growth and survival time were used as indices for drug efficacy, it was found that cortisone acetate, administered subcutaneously at a dose of 8.0 mg/kg, was ineffective in tests conducted against BALB/c mice bearing well established MC-induced tumors. Prednisone (12.5 mg/kg), prednisolone (3.125 mg/kg), hydrocortisone acetate (25.0 mg/kg), 9a-fluorocortisol (12.5 mg/kg), and 17a-ethynyl-19-nortestosterone (250.0 mg/kg) were found to be ineffective chemotherapeutic agents against well established MC-induced tumors in C3H mice.

^* This investigation was supported in part by Research Grant CY-3785 from the National Cancer Institute, U.S. Public Health Service; in part by Contract SA-43-ph-1923 and SA-43-ph-2445 from the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center, U.S. Public Health Service; and in part by Grant T-47 from the American Cancer Society.

Visiting Research Fellow, Sloan-Kettering Institute, 1957–1958; Cancer Institute, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Tokyo, Japan.

Received 4/25/60.