planing a study - (Nov/22/2010 )

hi all

i am planing a study where i am going to inject a hydrocarbon oil in peritoneal cavity of mice which would lead to formation of ascitic fluid afetr 3 months. I have to investigate certain cytokines in the ascitic fluid. For control group i am injecting saline in place of oil. but no ascitic fluid formation takes place in this group. I want to ask do i really need a control group in this kind of study? or should i just flush the cavity of both control and test group with 1ml of PBS and investigate the parameters in both groups? please help...

thank you

Absolutely yes you need a control group! Experimental data are completely worthless without proper controls. You should mimic your test conditions as closely as possible in your control group. Is there another type of oil you could use instead of saline for your control? I think this would be better.

Hey Man ! This is great to now that you are planning of study. I think it would be your best experience of injecting a hydrocarbon oil in peritoneal cavity of mice which would lead to formation of ascitic fluid afetr 3 months..amzing man..
irrigation projects

Do you have any evidence to back your idea?
How do you measure the ascites level? I think sonography is better than your manual suction of peritoneal fluid (more objective). If you use sonography, negative control with PBS is fine and no fluid detected there.

If manual suction is used, you can measure the fluid in a time course and prove that the fluid amount is increasing over the course of 3 months.
Another way is that injection of 0.5 ml PBS and you remove > 0.5 ml in positive result, while < 0.5 ml in negative control.