Renal cell carcinoma having heterogeneous histological appearance and homogeneous enzymatic property.

A case of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) presenting various histologic growth patterns, including papillary, tubular and solid arrangements, and an area resembling sarcoma are described. In order to identify RCC of high versatility of renal carcinosarcoma, electrophoretic studies of tissue alkaline phosphatase (Al-P) and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (gamma-GTP), as well as histochemical studies of these enzymes, were conducted. The Al-P was proved to be bond type alone and the gamma-GTP corresponded with the novel isozyme associated with RCC tissue. Moreover, these two enzymes were found to be distributed in every part of different histologic appearance. It was concluded from these results that the histologic pleomorphism of the case herein reported was due to morphologic transformation of the neoplastic cells sharing essentially identical enzymatic nature.