Haematopoietic late effects of prolonged bleomycin treatment in mice

In two studies, haematopoietic late effects of prolonged bleomycin treatment were evaluated in mice given serial injections of 21 mg bleomycin/m2 weekly for 31 and 44 weeks, respectively. Femoral bone marrow cellularity measured at 43, 45, and 49 weeks after discontinuation of the drug in the first and after 20 weeks in the second study was found to be significantly (P less than 0.05) lower in the treated mice than in the controls. CFU-S, BFU-E, and CFU-C contents were also reduced in the treated bone marrow, but with the exception of CFU-S in the second study, differences from control values were not significant. Additional long-term bone marrow cultures performed in the second study revealed no marked changes in the marrow proliferative activity and the self-renewal of stem cells to explain the reduced marrow cellularity and stem cell content. These last findings might, therefore, be due to a decrease in femoral size with less marrow content in the treated mice, since measurements of the tibial weights in both groups showed that the bones in the treated animals were significantly (P less than 0.05) lighter than those in the controls.