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Departments of Medicine and Histopathology, St George's Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, London, SW17 ORE

(Received 4 May 1978)

There are now many reports of the growth of various human malignant tumours such as colonic carcinoma and malignant melanoma in the 'nude' athymic mouse (Rygaard & Povlsen, 1969), but there are few instances of human benign tumours being transplanted successfully into these animals. Nevertheless, the possibility of using the 'nude' athymic mouse as a vehicle for maintaining pituitary adenomatous tissue in a viable state for a prolonged period under conditions which are more physiological than those of tissue culture has been examined.

Pituitary adenomas were obtained from seven patients undergoing craniotomy for the treatment of acromegaly and from three patients without acromegaly where the tumour was removed because of visual impairment. Part of the tissue was fixed in formol–saline for light microscopy, part was fixed in 4% glutaraldehyde in phosphate