PEDIATRICS Vol. 49 No. 3 March 1972, pp. 400-405
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STUDIES ON ORGAN MATURATION: "SKIN AGE" AS AN INDICATOR OF "LUNG AGE" IN FETAL RABBITS

H. William Taeusch Jr. M.D.1, N. S. Wang M.D.1, and Mary Ellen Avery M.D.1

1 Departments of Pediatrics, Physiology, and Pathology, McGill University-Montreal Children's Hospital Research Institute, Montreal

A skin score was constructed from the study of histological specimens from 38 rabbit litters removed during the last third of gestation. The score increased predictably with increasing gestational age. Changes in body weight occurring within litters of the same gestational age did not affect the score. This pattern of development is similar to that previously described for fetal rabbit lung. In 16 fetuses, 1 mg of hydrocortisone was injected 2 days before delivery on day 28 of gestation. Although lung age is known to be accelerated by steroid injection, the skin score was not advanced. Therefore, maturational indices of lung and skin while normally parallel and independent of body weight variation, are affected differently by an altered steroid environment.

Submitted on July 1, 1971
Accepted on September 16, 1971