muramidase and Intestinal-Polyps

Five thousand seven hundred seventy-eight adenomas or adenomas containing carcinoma from 3215 patients were examined by routine histologic methods for the presence of epithelial metaplasias. Three forms of epithelial metaplasia were encountered: squamous cell metaplasia (0.44%), Paneth cell metaplasia (0.20%), and melanocytic metaplasia (0.017%). In several instances multiple forms of metaplasia were encountered in the same polyp. In those cases in which the paraffin blocks were available, a Grimelius stain was performed. Grimelius-positive cells were present in 63% of the adenomas containing a metaplastic cell type. All cases with Paneth cell differentiation were immunoreactive for lysozyme; all lesions containing areas of squamous differentiation were immunoreactive for keratin except 2. The histopathologic features of these cases are discussed, and it is concluded that rather than representing a true metaplastic process, Paneth cell, squamous cell, and melanocyte differentiation represent the full range of cellular differentiation that endodermally derived tissues can exhibit, particularly when they undergo neoplastic alterations.

Topics: Adenoma; Adult; Age Factors; Aged; Cell Differentiation; Colonic Neoplasms; Female; Histocytochemistry; Humans; Intestinal Polyps; Intestine, Large; Keratins; Male; Melanocytes; Metaplasia; Middle Aged; Muramidase; Rectal Neoplasms; Retrospective Studies; Sex Factors

Seventeen years after a Billroth II gastric resection for duodenal ulcer had been performed, two large polypoid tumors were found in the gastric stump (outside the stomal area) and in the duodenal stump of a 69-year-old man. Histologically the neoplasms were tubular adenomas with small focal carcinomatous changes restricted to the gastric tumor. A distinctive feature of both tumors was the occurrence of three major cell populations segregated into two different types of neoplastic epithelium: one with columnar mucous cells containing gastric type mucins and mixed with a large number of argyrophil endocrine cells and the other with large, pleomorphic cells containing immunoreactive lysozyme and intestinal type mucins. In the absence of any evidence of generalized gastrointestinal polyposes, it is suggested that both tumors originated from the gastric mucosa (of heterotopic origin in the duodenum) and that the second type epithelium may represent a particular, and up to now unrecognized, type of intestinal metaplasia.

Topics: Aged; Duodenal Neoplasms; Enterochromaffin Cells; Humans; Intestinal Polyps; Male; Mucins; Muramidase; Neoplasms, Multiple Primary; Polyps; Postoperative Complications; Stomach; Stomach Neoplasms; Time Factors