The detection of dysplasias in ulcerative colitis by a monoclonal antibody: preliminary report

The reactivity of dysplasia and of adenocarcinoma tissues with the monoclonal antibody 52-2 was tested in 40 specimens from colitic and non-colitic patients. These included specimens from colitic patients having abnormal glands with nuclear stratification and hyperchromasia, surrounded by severe inflammation. While the normal colonic mucosa demonstrated a positive reaction only at the base of the crypts (germinal epithelium), dysplasia in colitic patients demonstrated reactivity in the full length of the dysplastic glands: at the apical aspect of dysplastic cells, at the glycocalix, in the entire cytoplasm and the level of the cell membrane (between two contiguous dysplastic cells and at the stromal aspect of the cells). A similar reaction was found in dysplastic glands from colorectal adenomas in non-colitic patients. Invasive adenocarcinomas in colitis and in non-colitics showed strong positive reaction. In colitics, no reactivity was found in abnormal glands with nuclear stratification with hyperchromasia, surrounded by severe chronic inflammation. The possibility of differentiating dysplasias from reactive reparative cellular changes in patients with ulcerative colitis is discussed.