Eighth Week Of Treatment Research Articles

Plasma alpha-fetoprotein elevation and mutagenicity of urine as early predictors of carcinogenecity in benzo(alpha)pyrene fed rats.

Weaning male Fischer rats were fed purified diets containing 0, 1, 100, or 1,000 ppm benzo(alpha)pyrene (BAP) for 6 weeks or 0, 1, or 100 ppm BAP for 3 weeks, then the same diets with or without 500 ppm sodium phenobarbital (PB) for an additional 5 weeks. Blood plasma alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) was determined at one to two week intervals. Urine, collected for eight hours during the sixth or eighth week of treatment, was tested for mutagenicity with S. typhimurium strain TA98 by the Salmonella/mammalian microsome test. Frozen liver sections were stained for gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) activity. Only the 1000 ppm BAP treatment induced elevated blood plasma levels of AFP and GGT-positive hepatic cell foci. Urine from rats fed 1000 ppm BAP pr 100 ppm BAP + 500 ppm PB caused a significant (P less than or equal to .05) increase in revertants of S. typhimurium, compared to urine from control rats. Evidence from this investigation suggests that plasma AFP determination and urinary mutagenesis testing could be useful in short term in vivo screening for potential carcinogens.

CURVE OF ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED WASSERMANN REACTIONS AFTER TREATMENT BY NEO-ARSPHENAMIN AND MERCURY SALICYLATE

During the war it was the rule in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces that any one who had an entry of venereal disease on his medical history sheet must be treated in the venereal hospital, and that no patients would be returned to Canada unless they were noninfective. If possible, no patient was discharged from the clinic until a negative Wassermann reaction was obtained on the blood of the patient. Thus some patients with primary cases of venereal disease received eleven injections, and some with secondary cases received twenty-two. AUTHOR'S METHOD OF TREATMENT In our clinic the treatment consisted of at least seven weekly intravenous injections of neo-arsphenamin, beginning with a dose of 0.45 gm., and increasing it to 0.9 gm., and nine weekly injections of mercury salicylate (1 grain) in paraffin. The injection of neo-arsphenamin was omitted on the fourth and eighth weeks of treatment; on these dates the patients