Mouse Endogenous Spleen Counts as a Means of Screening for Anti-Radiation Drugs

Abstract

Using eight radioprotective compounds, a comparison was made between the “standard” survival method and a method employing the counting of macroscopic spleen colonies in assessing the degree of radioprotection. The two methods yielded similar assessments of the degree of radioprotection afforded and required about the same amount of man-hours to conduct the procedure. The spleen colony method offers the advantage of completing the assessment after 10 days rather than 30 and yielding fresh tissues from all scored test animals. The use of a system in which macroscopic spleen colonies are counted offers an alternative to employing the method of animal survival in the quantitative assessment of compounds for radioprotective activity.