MORPHOLOGICAL CYTOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SPONTANEOUS HEMOBLASTOSIS OF AKR MICE

Spontaneous hemoblastoses, causing death of 70-90% of AKR mice in the first year of life, have been widely used in various branches of experimental oncology and hematology. However, available information on the morphological characteristics of hemoblastosis arising in mice of this strain is highly contradictory. For example, one investigator has described all the known morphological variants of hemoblastosis in mice of this strain [5], whereas others [I] have described AKR leukemia as hemocytoblastosis and myelosis, and a third group [2] have stated that the myeloid form of leukemia is observed most frequently in the animals which they studied. Finally, in more recent investigations the view has been expressed that hemoblastoses in AKR mice are lymphoid in genesis [4] and some workers consider them to be generalized lymphosarcomas, whereas others are inclined to regard them as lymphatic leukemias [3, 6]. The contradictory nature of these data to some degree reflects present difficulties in the differential diagnosis of tumor-like leukemias and generalized lymphosarcomas, for there are as yet no morphological criteria for differentiation of these two processes. In view of the facts described above it was decided to study the morphological characteristics of hemoblastoses in AKRmice, using modern methods of cytological and cytochemical analysis.