Mapping intestinal metaplasia by histochemistry and morphometry.

A gastrectomy specimen housing an adenocarcinoma of intestinal type was divided into 60 blocks. Sections were stained with Alcian blue pH 2.5 (to detect foreign mucins). Alcian blue fields were quantitated with a MOP 30 connected to a computer. The mucosa analysed in the 60 sections measured 3788.3 mm2 and that occupied by Alcian blue stained goblet cells 300.9 mm2 (or 7.9% of the total mucosal area). The number of Alcian blue positive fields was significantly larger in the intermediate zone followed by the antral zone, the lowest value was found in the corpus. However, the gastric mucosa with Alcian blue positive cells was larger in the antrum than in the intermediate zone due to the fact that the area of the fields with Alcian blue positive cells was significantly larger in the antrum than in the intermediate zone. The size and number of Alcian blue positive fields were significantly larger along the greater than along the smaller curvature. All measurements were done by a trained technician. The method (using histochemistry, morphometry and skilled technical assistance) will be applied to study the distribution of intestinal metaplasia in gastrectomy specimens from populations with disparate incidences of gastric carcinoma.