Production of urinary bladder carcinomas in mice by sodium saccharin.

Pellets weighing 20 to 24 milligrams and containing 20 percent sodium saccharin suspended in cholesterol were surgically implanted into the urinary bladder lumens of female Swiss mice (60 to 90 days old) under ether anesthesia. Incidences of mouse bladder carcinomas in animals exposed to these pellets were 47 and 52 percent as compared with incidences of 13 and 12 percent in control mice exposed to pellets of pure cholesterol. The exposure of the mouse bladder to saccharin was very brief, because the time required for 50 percent of the compound to be eluted from the pellets was about 5.5 hours.