Keisuke Kitaura

Effect of thyroid stimulating hormone on the development and progression of rat thyroid follicular cell tumors

Time course changes in cell proliferative activity of thyroid focal hyperplastic and tumorous lesions as well as blood thyroid-related hormones in male F344 rats initiated with N-bis(2-hydroxypropyl)nitrosamine (DHPN: 2800 mg/kg body weight, single s.c. injection) were examined following chronic administration of 0.1% sulfadimethoxine (SM) in the drinking water for 1, 4, 8, 12 and 16 weeks and at the end of a subsequent 4-week recovery period. Serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels increased rapidly from week 1 of SM treatment, reaching a peak at week 8, and then decreased gradually with prolongation of treatment period, although remaining significantly elevated as compared with the corresponding controls at all time points up to week 16. Follicular cell hyperplasias and adenomas of the thyroid occurred from week 4 and carcinomas from week 8. All of these lesions showed high cell proliferative activities corresponding to high serum TSH levels during the early stage, but the levels in hyperplasias and adenomas decreased rapidly with prolongation of SM treatment. After the recovery period, serum TSH levels had returned to below the normal range and cell proliferation in follicular hyperplasias and adenomas had stopped or was very low. Some carcinomas demonstrating invasive growth also showed remarkable decreases in the cell proliferative activity. The results of our study strongly suggest that a high serum TSH level plays an important role in the early stage of thyroid tumorigenesis and that some tumors exhibiting invasive growth are still dependent on TSH stimulation.

Synergistic effects of phenobarbital and thiourea on proliferative lesions in the rat liver

To evaluate the effects of phenobarbital (PB) and thiourea (TU), alone or in combination, on proliferative lesions of the liver, thyroid and lung, male F344 rats initiated with 2000 mg/kg body weight N-bis(2-hydroxypropyl) nitrosamine (DHPN) were given diet and/or drinking water containing 0% PB/TU (group 1), 1000 ppm PB (group 2), 0.1% TU (group 3) and 500 ppm PB and 0.05% TU (group 4), from weeks 2 to 20 for 19 weeks. Group 4 showed remarkable increases in the number of hepatocellular altered foci per animal, the values being superior to the averages of groups 2 and 3. The number of thyroid proliferative lesions per animal was highest in group 3 and lowest in group 2. Lung proliferative lesions were induced in all groups, but no modifying influence on their development was evident in the combined group. The present results indicate that combined administration of PB and TU exerts synergistic enhancing effects on hepatocarcinogenesis.

Spontaneous Nephroblastoma with Lung Metastasis in a Rat

This report describes a spontaneous nephroblastoma with lung metastasis in a 10-week-old male Crl:CD(SD) rat. Macroscopically, a white mass in the kidney and two white masses in the lung were observed. Histopathologically, the renal mass was located in the cortex of a kidney, and it caused pressure on the surrounding renal parenchyma. Three components could be distinguished in the tumor: blastemal, epithelial (primitive glomerular/tubular structures) and mesenchymal (neoplastic connective tissues) elements. Immunohistochemically, the tumor cells were positive for Wilms tumor 1 protein (WT1) and vimentin. Metastasis was found in the lung. Thus, the case was diagnosed as a nephroblastoma with lung metastasis.

A case of spontaneous myocardial necrosis and cerebral ischemic lesions in a laboratory beagle dog.

A beagle dog treated with saline as a control animal in a preclinical study was euthanized due to sudden systemic deterioration. On histopathological examination, contraction band necrosis of myocardial cells was observed widely in the left ventricular wall, including the papillary muscle and apex, and observed slightly in the ventricular septum and left atrium. In the brain, necrosis was observed in neurons and glia of the cerebral cortex, hippocampal pyramidal cells, glial cells of the rostral commissure and Purkinje cells of the cerebellar vermis. It is highly probable that the marked systemic deterioration was caused by cardiac dysfunction due to the spontaneous contraction band necrosis of the myocardial cells, although the pathogenesis of the myocardial lesions remains unclear. Given the distribution of neuronal necrosis in the brain, it is likely that these lesions resulted from the ischemia responsible for acute cardiac failure.