Fig. 1

Body weights of saline and doxorubicin treated mice. a Study I with the highest dose of 4 mg/kg tested. Female mice treated with doxorubicin started to lose body weight after the first injection and continued to decline after the second injection. Male mice treated with doxorubicin had similar loss in body weight, however seemed to tolerate this dose slightly better than females. b In this dose escalation study, mice were treated starting with 0.5 mg/kg. The dose was increased weekly by 0.5 mg/kg. At a dose 1.5 mg/kg and a cumulative dose of 3 mg/kg, mice started to accelerate their loss in body weight and the weekly dose was reduced to 1.0 mg/kg. However, at a cumulative dose of 5 mg/kg the study had to be terminated because most mice had lost more than 10% of their body weight. c In study III mice received six weekly doses of 0.5 mg/kg for a cumulative dose of 3 mg/kg. At this dose mice tolerated doxorubicin treatment and the study continued for 8 weeks with moderate loss in body weights. d Representative in-situ photos of the abdominal cavity in (i) saline injected control mouse and (ii and iii) doxorubicin treated mice. Both doxorubicin treated mice have smaller livers compared to the saline treated mouse (white arrowheads), as well as air accumulation in the colon and intestines (green arrows). In (ii) parts of the intestines is necrotic (white arrow). The black arrow in (iii) shows the stomach that is visible due to the significantly smaller liver