Ovarian neoplasia in the Sprague-Dawley rat

Our plain-English summary of Ovarian neoplasia in the Sprague-Dawley rat, by D.J. Lewis (Environmental Health Perspectives, 1987).

The study

• Author: D.J. Lewis
• Journal: Environmental Health Perspectives
• Published: 1987;73:77-90
• Cited by: 13 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

Macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of 210 spontaneous ovarian tumors from 7748 Sprague-Dawley rats are described. The tumors were classified as tubular adenoma, anaplastic adenocarcinoma, papillary cystadenoma, papillary cystadenocarcinoma, mesothelioma, sertoliform tubular adenoma, Sertoli's cell tumor, granulosa cell tumor, thecal cell tumor, polycystic sex cord/stromal tumor, and lipoid cell tumor. The histogenesis of the tumor types is discussed.

In plain English

This was a pathology study of laboratory rats, not people, and it did not study asbestos or any other exposure. The author reviewed all ovarian tumors kept in the Huntingdon Research Centre archives since 1975 from 7748 Sprague-Dawley rats. These were untreated control animals from life-span carcinogenicity and toxicity studies, so the 210 tumors had arisen spontaneously. The author described how the tumors looked to the naked eye and under the microscope and sorted them into types. The most frequent type in the table was the sertoliform tubular adenoma (150 tumors). Seven tumors were classed as mesotheliomas of the ovary: 2 benign and 5 malignant. The malignant mesotheliomas formed large masses, with nodules throughout the abdominal (peritoneal) cavity and fluid in the abdomen. One had spread to the lungs. Ovarian tumors were judged to have contributed to death in 16 of the 210 cases. The author presented the classification as a working model rather than a final one, noting that hormone-related clinical data were not available.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Animal study: descriptive pathology review of archived spontaneous ovarian tumors in control rats
• Who was studied: 7748 female Sprague-Dawley rats (6338 CD rats from Charles River, USA, and 1410 CFY rats from Anglia Laboratory Animals, UK) whose tissues were held in the Huntingdon Research Centre archives since 1975; 210 ovarian tumors were found
• Exposure: No exposure studied. The rats were untreated controls and the tumors were spontaneous. Asbestos is not mentioned.
• Main results:
  • Ovarian tumors were considered to have contributed to death in 16 of the 210 ovarian tumors found in the 7748 rats
  • Sertoliform tubular adenoma was the most frequent type, with a table total of 150 tumors
  • Two ovarian mesotheliomas were classified as benign. These were not seen at necropsy.
  • Five malignant ovarian mesotheliomas were recorded. They formed large masses (up to 70 x 55 x 42 mm), with nodules throughout the peritoneal cavity and blood-tinged fluid in the abdomen.
  • In one malignant mesothelioma case, tumor deposits were found in the lungs
  • Separately, the ovaries were involved in five cases of generalized abdominal mesothelioma
  • No significant differences were found between rats from the two suppliers
• The authors' conclusion: The author presented the classification as a working model reflecting the state of the art, not as the final classification of rat ovarian tumors
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Clinical information was not taken into account because data on hormone (endocrine) function are not routinely available for rat ovarian tumors
  • The tissue origin of the sertoliform tubules remained uncertain

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Ovarian cancer.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Adenocarcinoma, Mesothelioma.

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