[Morphometric studies on epithelial cells of the rat stomach under chronic effect of alcohol]

In studying the effect of ethanol on the size of parietal cells 60 Wistar rats received 15% ethanol ad libitum and were killed after 8 days, 2, 4, 8, and 12 weeks. For the control group 24 untreated animals were used. The parietal cells were stained with Kongo-red for the histological preparations and with a Papanicolaou modification for the cytological smear. With two measuring-methods -- the Integration-disc and the Mikrovideomat -- the cell and nucleus surface were determined and the nucleus-plasma-relation was calculated. After 8 days of alcohol administration a significant increase of parietal cell surface appeared in the histological and cytological preparation. The cytoplasma surface area increased continuously until the 8th week. With further application of alcohol until the 12th week the zytoplasma surface area decreased again but remained above the starting size. The calculation of the cell surface areas produced nonuniform results. Further the sizes of parietal cells (cytoplasma and nucleus surface areas) in the cytological smear and after being embedded in the histological preparation were compared. In the applied measuring methods a comparison was also made.