The Experimental Development and Metabolism of Thyroid Gland Tumors

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses that the occurrence of spontaneous tumors of the thyroid gland in rats and mice is exceedingly rare. However, thyroid gland tumors have been produced in these laboratory animals by several different methods. There is ample indirect proof that such tumors occur when the thyroid gland tissue is subjected to continuous prolonged stimulation by increased amounts of thyrotropin evoked by a deficiency of circulating thyroid hormone. The chapter reviews that the conditions most favorable to the development of independent or autoiromous thyroid gland tumors have not yet been completely apprehended with the support of the available studies, the view that much variation occurs in experimentally produced thyroid tumors in both rats and mice. A long but also variable induction period exists. Although, the reasons for the decreased capacity to collect and bind iodine that occurs in experimentally produced thyroid gland tumors remain largely unknown and since, most cancers of the thyroid gland in man have also lost much of their ability to collect iodine compared to that of the normal thyroid gland it seems reasonable to conclude that quite similar explanations may exist for these functional changes of thyroid gland neoplasm's that occur during thyroid gland carcinogenesis in both animals and man.