Experimental results bearing on the etiology of cystic growths in the ovary and uterus of the guinea pig

Abstract

In experiments on underfeeding it was found that malnutrition readily gave rise to marked cystic conditions in the ovaries of healthy young guinea pigs. Such cystic conditions are, of course, frequently found in normal stock but here especially in old or unhealthy specimens.

The changed nutritive conditions in the reproductive organs of underfed animals cause circulatory congestion, and as was pointed out in a previous communication 1 such conditions suppress the œstrous changes and prevent ovulation in these animals. The congestion and the high pressure resulting therefrom seem to favor the proliferation of the epithelial lining of the epididymal tubules located near one pole of the ovary, and the accumulation of fluid within the lumen of the blind tubules.

The malnutrition expresses itself first within the ovary by a wholesale degeneration of developing follicles which seem to respond most delicately to changes in nutritive conditions. The congestion and follicular degeneration seem then to favor an overgrowth of the more resistant epididymal tubules which become distended and crowd out the parenchymatous portion of the ovary.

Uterine cysts seem to develop in the same way as those above as a response to the congestion resulting from malnutrition. The open mouths of the uterine glands make their cystic condition rare so that among hundreds of ovarian cysts of all sizes we have observed only one perfectly typical case of uterine cyst.

These experiments seem to indicate that ovarian and parovarian cysts represent growths of persistent embryonic tissue, and that an accompanying congestion and high pressure are necessary to the formation of typical cysts, and that these conditions may result from disturbed nutrition as is demonstrated by underfeeding the guinea pigs.