Colon epithelium. IV. Human colon carcinogenesis. Changes in human colon mucosa adjacent to and remote from carcinomas of the colon
Shamsuddin, A.K.; Weiss, L.; Phelps, P.C.; Trump, B.F.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute 66(2): 413-419
1981
ISSN/ISBN: 0027-8874 PMID: 6935488 Document Number: 171006
To verify the popular belief that the mucosa of the colon remote from a carcinoma is normal, colon mucosa from 30 patients was studied retrospectively. Fifteen patients had colon carcinoma and the other 15 patients without many obvious tumor in their colons served as controls. All the patients having colon carcinoma showed definite abnormalities in the mucosa remote from the tumor. None of the 15 control patients showed such morphologic changes in the mucosal sections sampled at random. The mucous changes observed were: dilatation and distortion of the crypts with flattening of the lining cells; overcrowding of crypts with mucous cells and basophilic cells; lining of the crypt with eosinophilic surface epithlial cells; and focal cellular stratification in the crypts. These abnormalities were consistently observed in the transitional mucosa adjacent to the tumor in all 15 cancer patients. Histochemical studies for the detection of epithelial acidic mucosubstances showed that sialomucin predominated in the colon mucosa harboring a carcinoma irrespective of the location of the tumor; colon mucosa from otherwise normal individuals and patients with noncarcinomatous diseases showed a predominance of sulfomucin. Mucosa of the colon harboring a carcinoma is morphologically and histochemically abnormal. The significance of these abnormalities and their possible role in the de novo histogenesis of colon carcinoma are discussed.