PRIMARY LUNG TUMORS IN MICE FOLLOWING THE CUTANEOUS APPLICATION OF COAL TAR

Abstract

The external application of tar to a number of separated areas on the surface of mice, in such fashion that no single area is irritated sufficiently long to cause lesions of the skin, has resulted in a very high incidence of lung tumors. This incidence ranged from 60.0 per cent in one experiment to 78.3 per cent in another. Control mice from the same stock but from 3 to 6 months older, and for that reason the more liable to spontaneous lung tumors, failed to show a single instance of such growths. Even in a stock in which spontaneous lung tumors had been frequent, the incidence for corresponding age periods has never been above 5.5 per cent while the average has been between 1 and 2 per cent over a period of years. The tumors in the tar-painted animals occur as small white nodules, either single or multiple. They are typical epithelial neoplasms, identical histologically with those described by previous authors as occurring spontaneously in mice.