The Phenotypes of the Gastric Carcinoma Evaluation by a New Immunohistochemical Method

The phenotypes of the gastric carcinoma were evaluated by a new method using immunohistochemistory with CD10 for intestinal brush border, MUC2 for intestinal goblet cells, human gastric mucin (HGM) for gastric foveolar cells and paradoxical concanavalin A (ConA) for gastric pyloric glands. For this study, fifty-two cases of well differentiated adenocarcinoma were randomly selected from our files, and four cases of extremely well differentiated adenocarcinomas were specially selected. Randomly selected well differentiated adenocarcinomas were classified into 12 cases (23%) of gastric phenotype, 33 (64%) of incomplete intestinal phenotype and 7 (14%) of complete intestinal (small intestinal) phenotype. Incomplete intestinal phenotype with HGM (-) used to he simply classified as intestinal phenotype, but it was very similar to incomplete intestinal phenotype with HGM(-). Therefore, it is reasonable that they should be classified as belonging to the same phenotypic group of incomplete intestinal type, distinguishing then from complete intestinal type. In addition, the phenotype of extremely well differentiated adenocarcinoma classified by the new method was consistent with morphological features revealed by H·E stain. By the new method, the phenotypes can he more easily and objectively evaluated. This classification is based on that of intestinal metaplasia, and it is considered to be useful for analyzing the correlation between background mucosa and carcinogenesis.