HORMONAL CONTROL AND METHODS OF MEASURING SEBACEOUS GLAND ACTIVITY.

There are numerous ways of assessing the activity of the sebaceous glands in rodents. For example, gland size and the incidence of mitoses have been extensively used. Gland size is extremely tedious to measure and, since it depends on both the transit time of the sebaceous cells and their production, is not proportional to sebaceous output. Whereas the incidence of mitoses is a true measure of activity in a holocrine structure, it is only one factor in secretion, which also depends on intracellular synthesis. For these reasons, direct measurement of sebaceous secretion is desirable.