the invention in greater detail the following experimental details relate to examples i iv set forth below sprague dawley rats were purchased from charles river laboratories wilmington mass cytosar u ara c was from the upjohn company kalamazoo mich receptor grade egf from mouse submaxillary glands human recombinant egf dimethyl sulfoxide dmso and vitamin d 3 were purchased from sigma chemical co st louis mo afgf was purchased from amgen corp thousand oaks calif all rats from each experiment were treated with ara c 50 mg kg intraperitoneally i p daily for 7 days for subcutaneous s c injections egf and fgf were prepared in pbs 1 bsa alopecia was always recorded on day 12 of experiment and scored as previously described hussein et al science 249 1564 1566 1990 jimenez et al faseb j 1991 for topical treatment murine egf was prepared as follows one vial of egf 100 u03bcg was dissolved in 0 2 ml of pbs 1 bsa and 0 12 ml of this solution was added to 0 48 of dmso three hours prior to ara c injection 0 1 ml of the egf dmso mixture was applied to each rat over a 1 cm 2 area between the shoulders using a rubber tip applicator rats were then kept individually separated for a period of three hours following which the treated area was carefully washed with soap and water and dried treatment was continued for 7 days control animals were similarly treated using dmso without egf two separate experiments were conducted to test the ability of murine egf to protect from ara c.