Effect of 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole on the experimental production of liver cancer.

Abstract

IT is well known that the activity of liver catalase is definitely reduced in the course of 4-dimethylamino-azobenzene carcinogenesis in rat liver1. Nakahara and Fukuoka2 reported that this reduction of liver catalase was prevented if liver powder or blood meal was fed so as to inhibit the production of liver cancer and suggested that liver catalase played a significant part in the biochemical mechanism of carcinogenesis and anticarcinogenesis. Heim et al. 3, in 1955, first observed that intraperitoneal injection of 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole remarkably reduced the catalase activity of the liver and the kidney, not of the erythrocyte. It has been shown since then that 3-amino-1,2,4-tri-azole has a highly specific effect on liver and kidney catalase. It may therefore be interesting to study the effect of a prolonged low level of liver catalase activity by the use of 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole on the experimental production of liver cancer by azo dye. Based on the above views, the following experiments were performed.