Sequential analysis of hepatic carcinogenesis: the comparative architecture of preneoplastic, malignant, prenatal, postnatal and regenerating liver.

The organizational pattern of hepatocytes in hyperplastic nodules, probable precursors of hepatocellular carcinoma, was examined sequentially at different stages in the carcinogenic process, and compared with the patterns in hepatocellular carcinomas, in developing liver and in regnerating liver. Scanning as well as transmission electron microscopy, and histochemistry with light microscopy were used. The hepatocytes in the hyperplastic lesions were arranged in plates 2 or more cells thick and glands, in contrast to the one-cell-thick plates of hepatocytes in normal mature liver, and showed unusualy separation from eachother, with irregularly dilated bile canaliculi. The organizational pattern found in the hyperplastic lesions shared properties with developing liver in the perinatal period, regenerating liver following the peak of cell division, and some hepatocellular carcinomas. Unlike the normal, in which there is a highly predictable time scale for change, an apparent delay or interruption of maturation may be of importance in lesions that persist and ultimately evolve into hepatocullular carcinoma.