1980 Volume 77 Issue 8 Pages 1250-1256
To determine the nature of intracytoplasmic alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) of tumors, especially of digestive organs, the immunohistological method with formalin-fixed paraffin embedded sections following Taylor (PAP technique) was employed. 27 cases with the tumors consisting of 20 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma, 2 cases of gastric carcinoma, 2 cases of duodenal carcinoma and 3 cases of bile duct carcinoma were examined.
AFP was apparently localized on the tumor cells of hepatocellular carcinoma, especially in the histological types of Edmondson's type II and III. And the localizations of AFP were recognized in three paterns, that is, AFP was localized only in the tumor cells, both in the tumor cells and liver cells, and sometimes only in the liver cells. In the presented cases of gastric carcinoma and duodenal carcinoma, AFP was mainly localized in the tumor cells, which were histologically medullary carcinoma. On the other hand, in the case of bile duct carcinoma, AFP was not localized in the tumor cells, but in the liver cells around the metastatic lesions of the carcinoma. In our cases, there is a tendency to show that the level of serum AFP was low when cytoplasmic AFP was localized in the liver cells, adversely the serum level of AFP was high when cytoplasmic AFP was localized in the tumor cells. It was presumably considered that the AFP was more remarkably produced by the tumor cells themselves than by the liver cells.