[Carcinogenicity study of cholestyramine in rats]

Carcinogenicity study on cholestyramine, an anti-hypercholesterolemic agent, was carried out using Fischer rats by feeding with a normal pellet diet (control) and with three sorts of the pellet diets in which cholestyramine was admixed in the common diet at the rates of 1.25, 2.5 and 5%, respectively. The animals were fed with these diets for 26 months and a normal diet for subsequent 2 months. Some of the male rats fed with the 5% admixed diet revealed a slight growth retardation and occasionally hemorrhagic tendency, without resulting in severe macroscopic and microscopic lesions of the internal organs and in shortening of the mean survival time as compared with that of the control group. The rates of tumor-bearing animals were high in all experimental groups including the control, but the rates were not considered to be drug-related. Incidences of individual tumors were not significantly different each other between cholestyramine-fed groups and control group. Thus, it was not recognized that cholestyramine induced any drug-related specific tumors and an accelerated growth of any tumors.