1969 Volume 21 Issue 4 Pages 65-78
It has thus far been believed that the brownish pigment in heart failure cells is hemosiderin, because it constantly presents an iron-positive reaction.
When the author and his co-workers applied our mercu ry-affinity reaction method to the human lungs, it has been found that this brownish pigment often did show an intense positive coloring in spite of the fact that hemosiderin fails to present a positive mercury-affinity reaction.
On the other hand, the mercury-affinity reaction-positive pigment in alveolar macrophages was always iron reaction-negative in the same site.
Therefore, a distinction between alveolar mac rophages containing this pigment and heart failure cells can be made in view of the histochemical characters of both pigments.
The former was designated as so-called heart failure cells, and the p igment contained in the same cells, as so-called heart failure cell pigment.
In addition, this pigment, which is still iron re action-negative after pretreatment with unmasking, is manifestly distinguishable histochemically, especially by using the mercu ryaffinity reaction, from mercury-affinity reaction-negative formalin pigment and hemosiderin coexistent in the so-called heart failure cells.
The histochemical character of the so-c alled heart failure cell pigment has been found very similar to that of ceroid pigment by using the following methods: mercury-affinity reaction, leuco-malachite green staining, nile blue sulphate (pH 3.0) staining, Mallory's fuchsin staining, acid fast fuchsin staining, PAS reaction, Lillie's PFAS reaction,2hydroxy-3-naphthoic acid hydrazide naphthanil diazo blue B (NAHD) reaction, and Masson's alkaline silver method.
However, the pigment concerned yielded a-weak positive result with sudan III staining on paraffin sections, while ceroid pigment is unequivocally sudan 111-positive on paraffin sections.
Therefore, its character appears in this respect to be different from that of genuine ceroid pigment in liver macrophages of rats fed on vitamin E deficient diet for several months.
From the above-mentioned findings the author has concluded that, the brownish pigment concerned, is ceroid-like pigment.
Besides, the mechanism of s udan staining on paraffin sections is discussed.
