A rapid immunohistologic method for determining the limit of cancer invasion at the surgical margin of scirrhous carcinoma of the stomach during surgery.

The authors used the monoclonal antibody (MAb) S202 as an adjunct for detection of scirrhous gastric carcinoma cells in cytomorphologic preparations of the resected stomach. Twenty-six samples of scirrhous gastric cancer were stained by the avidin-biotin complex technique on fixed frozen sections. MAb S202 was strongly reactive on all sections. In 12 cases, samples obtained from surgical margins were examined by a rapid immunostaining method. In one case, conventional cytologic findings were equivocal, whereas by the rapid immunostaining method single cells were stained darkly, indicating malignancy. Thus, immunohistochemical analysis using MAb S202 should be carried out to determine the limit of invasive carcinoma at the time of surgery.