PREVENTION OF EXPERIMENTAL UTERINE AND EXTRAUTERINE FIBROIDS BY TESTOSTERONE AND PROGESTERONE1

ACCORDING TO LIPSCHUTZ, VARGAS AND RUZ (I) uterine and extrauterine fibroids which are so easily induced by a prolonged treatment with estrogens in the guinea pig, can be partially prevented if testosterone is injected simultaneously with the tumorigenic quantities of estradiol. LipschUtz, Murillo and Vargas (2, 3) gave evidence that progesterone also is able to prevent these experimental fibroids. The antitumorigenic action of testosterone became manifest when the proportion of the esterified estradiol and the esterified testosterone was no less than 1:22; in other experiments proportions of 1:50 and more were made use of. The preventive action of progesterone was observed with quantities of the latter 150 times greaterthan those of estradiol. On account of the small number of our experiments and of the considerable individual variations as to the degree of the conjunctive tumoral reaction we raised the objection that the results may have been due to chance.