Study of antiblastomogenic action of epidermal chalones. I. The effect of epidermal chalones on some transplantable mouse tumours.

The effect of chalone-containing ethanol extract of rat skin (CCE) on the growth in mice of transplanted uterine cervix and skin carcinomas, hepatoma-22a, sarcoma-180 and leukemia L-1210 was studied. When CCE is added to the suspension of tumour cells (10 mg CCE/100 mg tumour tissue/ml saline) the most obvious retention of tumour growth is observed on squamous-cell carcinoma of uterine cervix (72.6%; p less than 0.01). The effect of CCE on the growth of other transplanted tumours, including the skin carcinoma, is not significant. As compared to the uterine cervix carcinoma, the skin carcinoma lacked its primary squamous-cell structure during the tumour progression. The possibility of applicative use of chalones for cancer control is discussed.