Figure 1.
High-dose dexamethasone (DEX) injection inhibited tumor progression and increased survival. (A) Schematic of the DEX treatment schedule. Mice were inoculated subcutaneously with 5 × 105 Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) cells, and on days 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21 post-inoculation, mice were intraperitoneally treated with 0.9% NaCl or various doses of DEX (2 mg/kg, 10 mg/kg, and 50 mg/kg). (B) Representative tumor growth in mice treated with 0.9% NaCl or various doses of DEX (n = 5–6 mice per group). Data are presented as mean ± SEM. Statistical significance was analyzed by unpaired Student’s t test and indicated by *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01. (C) Representative tumor size in mice treated with 0.9% NaCl or 50 mg/kg DEX. (D) Representative survival curves of the percentages of mice in treatment with 0.9% NaCl or 50 mg/kg DEX (n = 8 mice per group). (E) Tumors were excised from mice treated with 0.9% NaCl or 50 mg/kg DEX on day 21 of the schedule presented in (A), followed by hematoxylin and eosin staining of blood vessel invasion and immunohistochemistry staining of Ki67, c-Myc, and cleaved caspase-3. All scale bars represent 100 μm.