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Neutral mucin content of gastric carcinomas as a diagnostic aid in the identification of secondary deposits
Author(s) -
COOK H. C.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
histopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.626
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1365-2559
pISSN - 0309-0167
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2559.1982.tb02753.x
Subject(s) - mucin , adenocarcinoma , gastroenterology , gastric adenocarcinoma , pathology , gastrectomy , stomach , medicine , helpfulness , chemistry , biology , cancer , psychology , social psychology
A simple quantitative method used in conjunction with the diastase digestion‐Alcian blue‐PAS (D‐AB‐PAS) technique was employed in a retrospective study of 135 gastrectomy carcinomas, and in a range of 57 unrelated metastatic adenocarcinoma cases of confirmed origin, to determine what proportion of malignant cells/glands contained neutral mucin only, as against acidic mucin or mixtures of both acid and neutral types. Fifty of the gastrectomy cases (37%) showed a high neutral mucin content of 71% or more, this feature being more evident in the diffuse (D) type of tumour. The metastatic adenocarcinoma cases comprised 35 of non‐gastric origin of which eight (23%) had a high neutral mucin content of 71% or more, compared to 10 out of 22 cases of gastric origin (45%) having a neutral mucin content of 71% or more. It was felt significant that seven out of these 10 gastric cases were of the D type of tumour. The secondary adenocarcinoma of uncertain (unconfirmed) origin contained a group of cases with deposits of probable gastric origin of which more than half showed a high proportion of cells which contained neutral mucin only. The helpfulness of these findings is discussed.