Abstract
Summary
The administration of a single anesthetic dose of urethane resulted within 24 hours in a drop in the white blood cell count and the appearance of many mature cells in the bone marrow of leukemic mice. Since the number of mitotic figures in marrow myeloid cells was decreased, maturation may have been secondary to inhibition of mitosis in blast cells. However, in the treated mice there were fewer marrow cells capable of undergoing division, which may account for the reduced number of mitoses. The release of an increased per cent of mature cells into the circulating blood may be a factor in depression of the white blood cell counts following the injection of urethane into mice with myeloid leukemia.
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