Retarding Action of Adrenal Gland on Growth of Sarcoma Grafts in Rats

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Abstract
In an earlier study (1) it was shown that when tissue from immune rats was minced with tumor grafts, the only organ that uniformly inhibited the growth of the grafts when implanted into susceptible rats was the adrenal gland. Since the serum and various tissues of the immune animals failed to suppress the growth of tumor grafts, it was concluded that this action could not be attributed to the presence of antibodies, but was probably inherent in the adrenal gland tissue. In order to investigate this observation more fully, a study of the inactivation of tumor grafts by the adrenal gland, as well as the pituitary glands, of normal, tumor-bearing and tumor-immune rats was undertaken. The results of these experiments are described in this paper. Materials and Methods. Pituitary and adrenal glands excised from normal, tumor-bearing and tumor-immune rats respectively were minced with small grafts of rapidly growing sarcoma and transplanted subcutaneously into susceptible rats.