title: Nucleolar organizer regions in gastric carcinoma and its precursor stages.
abstract: A silver technique for nucleolar organizer regions (AgNOR) was applied to sections from 156 gastric biopsies and gastrectomy specimens. These included normal controls, normal gastric mucosa from carcinoma-bearing stomachs, intestinal metaplasia types I and III, dysplasia and carcinoma. AgNOR counts gradually increased from normal, through intestinal metaplasia, to carcinoma. This finding supports the chronic atrophic gastritis-intestinal metaplasia-dysplasia-carcinoma sequence concept for gastric carcinogenesis. Normal gastric mucosa was different from all lesions, including normal mucosa from carcinoma-bearing stomachs. Significantly higher AgNOR counts were observed in tumours compared to all other lesions except dysplasia. Dysplasia differed from intestinal metaplasia type I but not from type III. Eighty-five per cent of metaplasia cases overlapped with carcinoma and 19% with normal controls. The spread of AgNOR values in intestinal metaplasia reinforces the concept that this lesion is a heterogeneous entity reflecting a dynamic and continuous process. The AgNOR technique may contribute to the assessment of the stage of evolution of 'borderline' lesions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Histopathology, Portuguese Institute of Oncology, Lisbon.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rosa
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mehta
authors.forename: M I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Filipe
mesh_terms: D001706:Biopsy; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000473:pathology*; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007410:Intestinal Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D008679:Metaplasia; D009697:Nucleolus Organizer Region / Q000473:pathology*