A number of chemicals have been shown to cause malignant neoplasms in the forestomach of Fischer 344 rats when administered chronically by gavage. The present study was designed to identify early forestomach lesions following 2-week repeated gavage administration of some of these forestomach carcinogens. In this manner, we attempted to examine the hypothesis that early cell proliferation is associated with repetitive gavage administration of these chemicals. Groups of 8 or more male F344 rats received 1 of 6 reported forestomach carcinogens (ethyl acrylate (EtAc), diglycidyl resorcinol ether(DGRE), 1,2-dibromoethane (DBE), 1,2-dibromo-3-chloro-propane (DBCP), 1-chloro-2-methylpropene (dimethylvinyl chloride, DMVC) and 3-chloro-2-methylpropene (CMP)), 1 of 2 structurally related chemicals (methyl methacrylate (MMA) and dichloroethane (DCE)) which were negative in chronic carcinogenicity studies or the vehicle (corn oil) alone 5 days/week for 2 weeks. Histopathologic examination of forestomachs of rats killed 24 h after the last dose indicated no significant difference in the incidence or severity of epithelial cell proliferation in the rat forestomach between the vehicle control group and the 2 negative control groups. In contrast, the incidence and severity of epithelial cell proliferation of the rat forestomach in every group treated with a forestomach carcinogen was significantly higher than the incidence in the vehicle or negative control groups. These results suggest that early epithelial cell proliferation of the forestomach may be associated with at least some chemicals that induce forestomach neoplasia following chronic administration by gavage.