[Use of quantitative histochemistry in the prognosis of renal cell cancer]

The study was concerned with evaluating the quantitative histochemical and histoenzymatic peculiarities of renal cell carcinoma of various grade of malignancy. It involved measuring levels of lipids, glycogen, protein, nucleic acids and sugar as well as the activities of dehydrogenases, phosphatases, non-specific esterase and lipase in tumor cells. Grade I neoplasms were found to be associated with low proliferative activity matched by relatively high energy production thus causing excessive synthesis of lipids and glycogen to occur. Higher cell proliferative activity in grade II and III tumors accounts for a significantly lower level of lipids and glycogen. Those metabolic peculiarities appeared to correlate with prognosis.