ACTION OF CORTISONE ON MESENCHYMAL TISSUES

Abstract

OF FUNDAMENTAL importance is knowledge of the mechanism of action of those adrenal hormones which act beneficially in disseminated lupus erythematosus and other diseases of tissues of mesenchymal origin. Two of the patients described in our clinical discussion¹ showed failure to form granulation tissue while being treated, and 1 had prompt healing when treatment with pituitary adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) was discontinued. In other patients, with rheumatoid arthritis, similar observations have been made.² The question arose of whether ACTH and cortisone might not act by altering the host response to the disease, that is, by halting a connective tissue process which results in the various clinical entities of these diseases. Accordingly, an experimental evaluation of the effect of various steroids on the connective tissues is going on in our laboratories. Preliminary data³ indicate that cortisone administered to rabbits exerts a profoundly inhibitory effect on