Abstract
Oat cell carcinoma is of great interest in its clinicopathological entity, and its secretion of serotonin or ACTH can be no longer considered to be rare.However, there have been only a few reports concerning oat cell carcinoma secreting serotonin and ACTH simultaneously, where simultaneous production was concluded from clinical laboratory data or from accompa nied carcinoid syndrome and Cushing's syndrome.
Neither carcinoid nor Cushing's syndrome was observed in all the four cases of oat cell carcinoma reported in this paper, but biochemical determinations of humoral and tissue seroto nin and ACTH as well as ultrastructural studies on the tumor tissues indicated that all the tumors produced the biological active substances.
Oat cell carcinoma resembles morphologically to bronchial carcinoid in terms of secretion of serotonin and existence of neurosecretory-type granules in tumor cells.Thus it may be considered that oat cell carcinoma is originated from Kultschitzky-type cells located in bronchi. The cells producing amines such as Kultschitzky cells are considered to be neural crest origin. Cells originated from neural crest may have potential activities of producing serotonin and polypetide hormones such as ACTH, and the activities may be induced by carcinogenesis of these cells.
