title: Nucleolar organizer regions in small cell carcinoma of lung.
abstract: Agyrophilic staining of nucleolar organizer regions (NOR) has been used to differentiate between cells of small cell carcinoma and lymphocytes in tissue specimens. We used cytologic smears which were previously Papanicolaou-destained to study the one-step agyrophilic staining technique for nucleolar organizer regions (AgNOR) in cell of small cell carcinoma and lymphocyte. The purposes of this study were to assess the feasibility and usefulness of AgNOR staining in diagnostic cytology and to try to set up a procedure that could be used on prestained smears for retrospective study. While the NOR of each lymphocyte appeared to be one round dot after AgNOR staining, the NOR of cell of small cell carcinoma showed dots, slightly variable in size and shape. The mean number of NOR was significantly higher (p < 0.01) in cells of small cell carcinoma (4.7 +/- 0.7) than in lymphocytes (1.4 +/- 0.4). In conclusion, AgNOR staining was demonstrated to be a useful method to differentiate between cells of small cell carcinoma and lymphocyte in Papanicolaou-destained smears.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical College, Taiwan, Republic of China.
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: I W
authors.initials: IW
authors.lastname: Chong
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Tsai
mesh_terms: D018288:Carcinoma, Small Cell / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000473:pathology; D009697:Nucleolus Organizer Region / Q000473:pathology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies