OBJECTIVE: To investigate how the pretreatment of mice with Ganoderma spores affected the apoptosis of their splenic lymphocytes induced by dexamethasone after 19 days treatment.METHODS: Sixty Kunming mice were randomly divided into six groups: blank control groupdrenched with normal saline; a drug control group drenched with 150 mg/mL Ganoderma spores; a model group treated with saline; a low dose group with50 mg/mL Ganoderma spores; a moderate dose group with 100 mg/mL Ganoderma spores; and a high dose group with 150 mg/mL Ganoderma spores. The effect of Ganoderma spores on apoptosis in spleen lymphocytes was analyzed. All groups were treated for 19 days. On day 20, the model group and the 3 treatment groups were intraperitoneally injected dexamethasone to induce apoptosis. Splenic index and apoptosis indes were employed to measure cell apoptosis.RESULTS: The results showed that Ganoderma spores reduced the splenic index to different degrees in each group and the best effect was seen in the high dose group(P