Deleterious effects of prepubertal corticosterone treatment on rat prostate

PURPOSE:To investigate the structural and functional changes induced by corticosterone (CORT) in the ventral prostrate (VP) of rats in order to study chronic stress effects in the prepubertal phase.METHODS:Wistar rats received daily saline or CORT injections during the pubertal period from the 5th to 25th day of postnatal life. The animals were distributed into four groups: 1 - Control (n=5); 2 - Control 99mTc-P (n=5); 3 - Treated with CORT (n=14); 4 - Treated with CORT and 99mTc-P (n=10). All rats were sacrificed at two months of age. Technical tissue uptakes of 99mTc-P were used to evaluate the functional and stereological methods for morphological analysis.RESULTS:Acini distribution in the group treated with CORT differed significantly (p