Carcinogenic Activity in situ of Further Steroid Compounds

Abstract

THERE is more and more evidence coming from several research groups that a number of steroid molecules with no hormonal competence nevertheless possess carcinogenic properties. Ghiron¹, and later Cook et al.², obtained sarcomas with deoxycholic acid by subcutaneous injection in mice; cholesterol itself has been shown by Hieger³ to produce a 12 per cent incidence of sarcomas, as against 0.8 per cent in control mice injected with the solvent alone. More recently, we recorded the activity of apocholic acid, a dehydration product of cholic acid; it gave sarcomas in 4 out of 42 mice, as compared with 0 per cent in 350 mice injected with the solvent alone⁴. Tumours have also been recorded by Bryson and Bischoff⁵ in Marsh mice given testicular injections of cholesterol α-oxide. We wish now to report on the definite sarcomagenic activity of two further steroid molecules, one with a biochemical function, 7-dehydrocholesterol [in the form of its acetate (I)], the precursor of vitamin D₃, and the other, 3β-acetoxy-bisnor-Δ⁵-cholenic acid (II), a product of the artificial oxidative degradation of several sterols and bile acids⁶.