[Enzyme histochemical characteristics of the variants of kidney cancer]

Forty-seven specimens of renal cell carcinoma were studied using enzymatic histochemical (8 dehydrogenases and 3 hydrolases) and modern mathematical processing techniques. It was found that morphological variants of the tumor differed in enzymatic activity. This finding determines the possibility of employing specific enzymatic histochemical reactions in differential diagnosis. By the degree of differentiation morphological variants of hypernephroma can be entered into 3 groups: 1) clear cell carcinoma; 2) granular adenocarcinoma and sarcomatoid carcinoma; 3) mixed tumors. For clear cell carcinoma the activity of dehydrogenases and hydrolases enhanced with lesser differentiation of the tumor and vice versa for granular adenocarcinoma and carcinosarcoma. Poorly differentiated clear cell carcinoma is characterized by higher activity of dehydrogenases and hydrolases while granular adenocarcinoma and carcinosarcoma by lower activity of the enzymes compared to variants with well-differentiated tumor. These differences are due to specific cell structure of hypernephroma variants as well as their histochemical properties. There appeared a tendency to reduction of enzymatic histochemical polymorphism with a decrease in the differentiation of the tumor variant.