Ex vivo autoradiography of the human gastrointestinal tract: a new approach to cell kinetic studies of surgically removed tumor-bearing organs.

Surgically obtained portions of the human gastrointestinal tract were perfused with oxygenated perfluorochemical blood substitute, Fluosol-DA (FDA), containing tritiated thymidine. This procedure of ex vivo autoradiography was performed at the RI Center by perfusion of the isolated organ with FDA from a reservoir 190 cm above the organ through a cannula inserted into the main artery. Microautoradiographic sections revealed that the distributions of labeled nuclei in the normal epithelium of the esophagus, stomach, jejunum, colon and rectum coincided well with those reported previously. However, in the normal colonic mucosa in cases of familial adenomatosis, no expansion or shift of the proliferative zone to the upper part of the mucosa was observed. No significant difference was observed between the labeled figures of normal colonic mucosa of cases of familial adenomatosis and ordinary colonic cancer. This is the first report of ex vivo autoradiography of the gastrointestinal tract of man for studies on cell kinetics.