Abstract
Discussion and Summary
Chronic ulcerative cecitis, as it developed spontaneously in a rat colony, presented itself as an ideal experimental disease in which to study the effect of chemotherapy. At the time of the present observations the majority of the animals in our colony developed lesions of “cecitis” by the time they had reached 300+ g in weight. The addition of 0.5% of sulfaguanidine to the diet produced no deleterious clinical effect nor any visible gross lesions. On the contrary rats on sulfaguanidine gained weight rapidly. The drug even in the small doses used had a striking prophylactic effect against the development of cecitis; not only was the incidence very much lower than in the control group but, even more impressive, such lesions as occurred were minimal in contrast to the advanced disease found in most of the untreated rats. The protective effect of sulfaguanidine is demonstrated further by the failure of the treated animals to lose weight as did the controls with progressive lesions.
The concentration of the drug in the stools was not measured but the relatively low blood levels suggest, as pointed out by Marshall 4 that sulfaguanidine is less readily absorbed than some of the other sulfonamides.
In clinical work on ulcerative colitis, dysentery and other bowel infections in man we have not always been impressed with the therapeutic effects of sulfaguanidine. It is possible, however, that the drug may be of greater value as a prophylactic, and the present experiments suggest that such is the case. Trials in man under proper conditions would seem worth while in connection with military establishments.
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