The influence of pituitary hormones on adjuvant arthritis

✍ Scribed by Istvan Berczi; Eva Nagy; Sylvia L. Asa; Kalman Kovacs

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 631 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780270612

✦ Synopsis

Adjuvant arthritis was induced in female

Fisher rats by injecting their right hind paw with 0.1 ml Freund's complete adjuvant. The development of adjuvant arthritis was inhibited by hypophysectomy and by daily treatment of intact animals with the dopaminergic agent bromocriptine. Adjuvant arthritis developed normally if hypophysectomized or bromocriptine-suppressed animals were treated with either prolactin or growth hormone. Additional treatment with adrenocorticottopic hormone inhibited this restoration. Treatment of hypophysectomized rats with follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, aud thyroidstimulating hormone had no effect. These results indicate that prolactin and/or growth hormone are necessary for the development of adjuvant arthritis, whereas adrenocorticotropic hormone has an inhibitory effect.

Women are more prone to autoimmune disease than men. Approximately 90% of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are female (1). Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is 2-3 times more frequent From the