Compensatory Hypertrophy of the Intact Adrenal of Fetal Rats Subjected to Unilateral Adrenalectomy.

Abstract

At about 19 days and 11 hours after observed mating, 7 fetuses from 6 litters were subjected to unilateral adrenalectomy without interrupting the placental circulation. Following a postoperative period of about 53 hrs., this fetus and a litter mate control of the same sex were obtained by killing the mother. In a volumetric study of stained sections of the remaining adrenal, it was found that on the avg. the vol. of this adrenal divided by the body wt. was approx. 43% greater than that of the controls. The differences noted are highly significant statistically. Manifestations of this compensatory hypertrophy included a thin outer cortical zone, a widened intermediate zone with increased vacuolation of the cells in this zone, a dilatation of the vascular sinusoids of the inner zone and an increased size of cells of all zones.