[Deletion of ABH antigens in urine sediment cells from patients with prostatic adenoma]

This study was conducted to analyze ABH antigenic expression in urinary sediment of patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) before and after deobstructive surgery.

The agglutination inhibition technique was utilized to determine the ABH antigenic expression in urinary sediments of 30 healthy subjects and 34 patients with BPH. The presence of neoplastic cells was also determined in urinary sediments of the patients by Papanicolaou's stain. These studies were performed before and 12 months after surgery. Membrane antigen expression was found in 100% of the healthy subjects and in only 50% of the patients with BPH before surgery. Only 25 patients returned for control evaluation after surgery. Of these, 17 were positive and of the remaining 8 patients who were negative preoperatively, only one continued to be negative. Urine cytology demonstrated progression to malignancy in this patient.

Determination of ABH antigenic expression appears to be able to identify premalignant conditions and could be a useful complementary diagnostic method to cytology.