Abdominovaginal potential difference in postmenopausal patients with and without breast cancer

✍ Scribed by Henry M. Lemon; Langdon Parsons; Peter H. Mozden

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1964
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 913 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(196403)17:3<297::aid-cncr2820170304>3.0.co;2-x

✦ Synopsis

HE EXISTENCE OF ELECTRIC POTENTIAL DIF-

T ferences between human vaginal mucosa and a reference point on the anterior abdominal wall has been known for several decades. Early investigations correlated changes in potential difference between these sites with ovulation and menstruation in several species.3~ 6. 13 The use of silver-silver chloride electrodes in early studies may have led to erratic results, since these readily give rise to artefacts if the silver chloride plating is faulty, and, like other metallic electrodes, respond to changes in hydrogen ion concentration of their environment.21 Recently, an improved method of measuring bioelectric potentials from epithelial surfaces has been described, utilizing a prototype model high-impedance vacuum tube recording milliepotentiometer, connected through balanced calomel half cells to liquid electrodes with minimal resistance.11 The electrodes that are used consist of 0.85y0 sodium chloride-agar in glass tubes of at least 5 mm. internal diameter that are occluded distally by the patient's skin (abdominal reference electrode) or by a moist cotton plug that is placed in contact with the vaginal mucosa.

This report concerns observations of a series of pre-and postmenopausal patients with benign diseases and a group, largely postmenopausal, with mammary cancer. It was From the Eugene C.