Abstract
Surgical materials of gastric carcinoma were studied immunohistochemically in terms of the distribution of immunoglobulin-containing cells and the localization of secretory component (SC).
There was no convincing evidence suggesting that the secretory immune system surrounding carcinoma was responding to the carcinoma. But in some cases, increase of IgG-containing cells was observed in the stroma of carcinoma suggesting the presence of some kind of tumor immunity.
In the non-carcinomatous mucosa, SC was observed strongly in cells of intestinal metaplasia except for the goblet cells, but weakly in the normal foveolar epithelium.
The presence of SC in carcinoma cells was observed in 45 percent of the total cases of gastric carcinoma [36/80] and was especially porminent in signet-ring cell carcinoma [78%]. IgA was observed in about 50 percent of these SC-positive carcinoma cases. SC was also frequently positive in group III atypical epithelium.
