[Ultrastructure changes in tongue coating in chronic atrophic gastritis with deficiency cold or stagnated heat...

This paper reports the electron-microscopic observations of tongue exfoliated cells in 17 cases of chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG), 14 cases of chronic superficial gastritis, 9 cases of gastric carcinoma with deficiency cold (DC) and stagnated heat (SH) syndromes, and 12 normal cases. The results by electron-microscope showed that cell-organs and desmosome remains in the DC group were significantly higher than those in the SH group (P less than 0.05). However, the damage degree on the tonifibrils and surface structure of cells in the SH group was more serious than those in the DC group (P less than 0.05). The observations by light and electron-microscope revealed that the changes of microstructure and ultrastructure of tongue exfoliated cells in CAG did not distinguish from gastric carcinoma. But the changes in CAG was significantly different when compared with chronic superficial gastritis (P less than 0.05). From the above, the authors consider that the changes of tongue exfoliated cells could provide some morphological basis for the early stage of diagnosis.