PRELIMINARY STUDIES ON BLOOD ACTH IN MAN*

Abstract

ASTWOOD's oxycellulose procedure (1) for the isolation of pituitary ACTH as modified by Bartholomew¹ (2) has been applied to the analysis of blood ACTH in man. The details of the technic have been described elsewhere (3). Blood was obtained from 15 subjects: 7 healthy adult males, 2 patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis, 3 patients with Addison's disease, 2 patients with Cushing's syndrome (a female with bilateral adrenal hyperplasia and a male with carcinoma of the adrenal gland), and 1 patient with anorexia nervosa. A blood sample was obtained from a vein in the antecubital fossa and immediately mixed with 4 volumes of glacial acetic acid. The blood-glacial acetic acid mixture was processed by the oxycellulose technic for the determination of ACTH (3) and assayed in male hypophysectomized rats by the adrenal ascorbic acid-depletion method (4). Freshly prepared ACTH standard solutions, 0.25 and 1.0 milliunit² or 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 milliunit per 100-gram assay rat, were tested with blood eluates in every assay. The number of rats injected with a given sample was determined by the total volume of blood available and by the dose per rat. For example, if the volume of the blood sample was 120 ml., the eluate was divided into three equal parts and assayed at a dose equivalent to 40 ml. of blood per rat.