Application of staining of nucleolar organizer regions in cytological smears of the bronchus.
An argyrophil technique for the staining nucleolar organizer regions (AgNOR) was applied to cytological preparations obtained from bronchoscopic brushing materials. The number of AgNOR has been thought to be related to cellular activation. To differentiate malignant cells from non-malignant atypical cells, this study was carried out in 20 cases of adenocarcinoma of the lung (mean AgNOR: 18.34), 12 cases of pulmonary inflammatory diseases (mean AgNOR: 6.54) and 10 normal bronchial epithelial specimens for control (mean AgNOR: 2.07). On the basis of AgNOR number, we could differentiate between the three groups. The differences observed were statistically highly significant (p less than 0.0001). Moreover, the nucleolar organizer regions (NOR) in cancer cells were found the more irregularly distributed and more variable in sized than those in atypical and normal bronchial columnar cells. We suggest that the AgNOR technique will find increasing application as a complementary test in diagnostic cytopathology.
Huang
M S
MS
Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical College, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Hwang
J J
JJ
Tsai
M S
MS
Wang
T H
TH
Lin
M S
MS
Chong
I W
IW
Tsai
S Y
SY
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D001980:Bronchi / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D003581:Cytodiagnosis; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D009697:Nucleolus Organizer Region; D012834:Silver; D013194:Staining and Labeling
D012834:Silver