Abstract
Studies were made on total 85 speciemens, 63 from lung resection and 22 from autopsy, which had seen obtained during past 7 years from 1958 to 1965.
Results:
1) The forms of the giant cells are classified into 8 groups; that is, riped type, granule type, inclusion type, vacuolar type, atrophic type, dissociated type, necrotic type and foreign-body type.
The variety of these changes of giant cells seems to rely upon the length of the treatment.
2) The changes of arrangement of nuclei in giant cells were observed in the lungs treated with antituberculous medicaments, the nuclei tended to arrange indefinitely in the non-serious type tuberculosis, while in the serious type the nuclei in general were crowded circularly to the cell periphery as well as in the cases treated less than 1 month.
These tendency were more marked in vacuolar type and inclusion type of giant cells, and in reference to atrophic or dissociated types it was extremely difficult to distinguish the arrangement of nuclei.
3) The inclusion type of giant cells were found in 11 cases. The inclusions are classified into 4 groups ; that is asteroid body, retiformed body, needle-shaped body and mall-grained body.
Histo-chemical character of these inclusions were not necessarily the same; namely, it is reasonable to presume that: asteroid bodies are consisted mainly of some protein similar to elastin, the majority of retiformed bodies are similar to asteroid bodies in chemical
features, needle-shaped bodies are formed from argyrophil fiber through vacuolen in cytoplasm of giant cells, and small-grained bodies are consisted of calcaroid substance or degenerative concentrate of nuclei.
The inclusion types tend to appear in the margins of incapsulated Gaseous lesions, in small nodules of tuberculous lungs which had treated during 1 year or thereabouts. In these cases the clinical response based on antituberculous medicaments was remarkable or satisfactory except 1 autopsy case.
4) The appearance of the giant cells are a purposeful defence reaction in man. There is a close relation between the changes of forms of the cells as well as the changes of arrangement of nuclei and the formations of argyrophil fibers around or in the cells. It was assumed that these changes in giant cells are based on influence of the antituberculous
medicaments and the immunological status of the human subject.
