Morphological and immunological heterogeneity of human ovarian neoplasms

The cells of cystic fluids from patients with malignant and benign serous ovarian neoplasms were separated by density gradient centrifugation. Density distribution and morphological features of cell fractions were analyzed. The immunophenotypic characterization of each cell fraction using poly- and monoclonal antibodies was performed. The application of density gradient centrifugation allowed to yield and catalogue several cell subpopulations according to their stage of pathological differentiation starting from typical, morphologically malignant until normal epithelial cells. Significant morphological and immunological heterogeneity among and within individual tumors was found. Our studies indicated the value of isolated cell subsets for estimation of interrelationships among various neoplastic markers and for comparison the reactivity of different antibodies and evaluation of their immunodiagnostic potency.