Relationship between urethan dose rate and adenoma latency: relevance of tumor growth rate and target cell number.

Outbred Swiss Cox mice of both sexes were chronically exposed to urethan added to their drinking water at levels of 0.02--0.10% by weight. The number and sizes of lung adenomas that developed as a result were monitored as functions of time and dose rate (DR). The relationship between dose per unit time, or DR, and time (t1) needed for the development of a mean of one observable tumor per mouse was: DR x tn1 = k, where K and n are constants. The value of n was 2.75. This value could be largely accounted for by the DR-independent tumor growth time, although an increase in the number of target cells at higher urethan dose rates may also be a factor in the relationship between DR and t1. Examination of the relationships between cumulative incidence and DR and between cumulative incidence and adenoma induction time suggests that urethan acts at one stage of a two-stage mechanism in the induction of mouse lung adenomas.