The growth of follicles in the rat ovary under the influence of Busulphan and Endoxan®

Abstract

Busulphan and Endoxan^® inhibit the normal course of ovarian follicular growth. Older secondary as well as all antral follicles perish within a very short time. Growing follicles, which at the beginning of the experiment exhibited only one layer, remained intact and single-layered during the entire duration of the experiment. The oocytes, however, continue growing, and the cytoplasmic structures, which are characteristic of older growing follicles, develop in them as well as in the follicle cells. Even a theca formation develops. In some of the “growing” follicles which have remained single-layered, after 10 days of Busulphan administration, some liquor folliculi is produced and accumulates in a fissure-shaped “antrum” between the zona pellucida and the follicular epithelium.