THE DESOXYCORTICOSTERONE ACETATE REQUIREMENT OF THE ADRENALECTOMIZED DOG

Abstract

THE ABILITY OF DESOXYCORTICOSTERONE ACETATE (1, 2) to maintain the life of adrenalectomized animals has been adequately demonstrated (3–5), and its usefulness in the treatment of Addison's disease has been described (6–8). A daily maintenance dose of 1 to 1.5 mg. in oil, injected subcutaneously, is said (4) to be sufficient for a 10 kg. dog on a lean meat, salt-free diet, as compared to 6 to 8 cc.of aqueous cortical extract. Kuizenga, Nelson and Cartland (9) have reported comparative assays on cortical hormone substances in the rat but, apart from the report ofThorn and Eisenberg (4) and a brief preliminary communication of our own (10), we are not aware ofany papers describing such a comparison being made on the dog. We, therefore, have extended our earlier work and determined the minimal amount of desoxycorticosterone acetate2 necessary to maintain adrenalectomized dogs on diets containing different amounts of NaCl and also have assayed two cortical extracts.