Table 1.

Mast cell degranulation in samples from the lungs of allergic rats, either ovariectomized (OVx) or sham-operated (Sham-OVx), that were subjected or not to formaldehyde (FA) inhalation (1%, 90 min daily, 3 days). A naïve group was used as the control. In a parallel set, the rats were treated with progesterone before the FA inhalation. The data are the mean ± SEM of 5 rats per group.

	Mast cell number/mm2
Groups	Intact	Degranulated	%
Naive	2.15±0.03	0.04±0.04	0.0
OVA/OVA Sham-OVx	0.36±0.06*)	1.72±0.07*)	82.5*)
OVA/OVA OVx	1.40±0.07*)#	0.79±0.06*)#	36.1*)#
FA/OVA Sham-OVx	1.62±0.04*)#	0.12±0.03*)#	26.5*)#
FA/OVA OVx	1.60±0.07*)θ	0.30±0.07*)θ	17.2*)θ
FA/OVA OVx + P	1.10±0.03*)θγ	1.10±.0.20*)θγ	50.0*)θγ

^*p<0.05 vs. Naïve group; #p<0.05 vs. OVA/OVA Sham-OVx group; θ p<0.05 vs. FA/OVA Sham-OVx group; γ p<0.05 vs. FA/OVA OVx group.