Orcein staining of hepatitis B surface antigen in paraffin sections of liver on autopsy cases

Paraffin sections of liver on 227 autopsy cases were stained by a modified orcein method of Shikata et al (14) in order to detect hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). Blood of all the 227 cases obtained at autopsy were tested for HBsAg by immune adherence hamagglutination method (7) and for antibody to HBsAg (anti-HBs) by passive hemagglutination method (6). Cases of seropositive in HBsAg but negative in anti-HBs group showed orcein-positive hapatocyte in 13 (68%) of 19 cases of cirrhosis with hepatoma, in 2 (67%) of 3 cases of cirrhosis without hepatoma, and in 2 (67%) of 3 cases of non-cirrhotic neoplastic diseases other than hepatoma. Cases of seronegative in both HBsAg and anti-HBs group showed orceinpositive hepatocyte in 4 (17%) of 24 cases of cirrhosis with hepatoma, in 2 (11%) of 19 cases of cirrhosis without hepatoma, and in 3 (5%) of 60 cases of non-cirrhotic neoplastic diseases other than hepatoma. Cases of seronegative in HBsAg but positive in anti-HBsAg but positive in anti-HBs group showed orcein-positive hepatocyte in 1 (17%) of 6 cases of cirrhosis with hepatoma and in 1 (5%) of 21 cases of non-cirrhotic neoplastic diseases other than hepatoma. Cases of seropositive in both HBsAg and anti-HBs group showed orcein-positive hepatocyte in 1 (33%) of 3 cases of cirrhosis with hepatoma. No orcein-positive hepatocyte was detected in cases of hepatoma without cirrhosis and in cases of non-cirrhotic non-neoplastic diseases in any serological groups.