The effect of hydrocortisone acetate on the development of mouse embryos

ABSTRACT Hydrocortisone (Kendall’s compound F, 17-hydroxycorticosterone, Cortisol) and cortisone (Kendall’s compound E, 17-hydroxy-ll-dehydrocorticosterone) have been widely used in medicine for about 20 years, first as adrenal hormones in substitution therapy. Since the discovery of Hench, Kendal, Slocumb & Polley (1949) that cortisone is beneficial against a wide range of rheumatic diseases and against all forms of arthritis, many more types of diseases have been added in later years to the list of ailments curable with cortisone, namely bronchitis, bronchial asthma, pulmonary tuberculosis, colitis, various inflammatory conditions and certain skin, blood and eye diseases. Hydrocortisone is used against the same diseases as cortisone; in fact, it is believed that cortisone becomes pharmacologically active only after conversion to hydrocortisone in the liver (Cope, 1964). Particularly in the inflammatory conditions cortisone must be converted to hydrocortisone to become antiphlogistic (Applezweig, 1962).