Heterogeneity and subcompartmentalization in the distribution of eosinophils in human colonic carcinomas.

Previously the authors reported that high concentrations of eosinophils in human colonic carcinomas are associated with better prognoses. They wished to know whether there were stromal subcompartments in these tumors with respect to the distribution of eosinophils. They evaluated concentrations of eosinophils at the margin and deep to the margin. For tumors with sufficient eosinophils to indicate good prognoses, the concentrations of eosinophils at the margins were strikingly lower than the concentrations in the samples remote from the margins. This is the first report that any kind of inflammatory cell is less concentrated in the periphery of a tumor than more centrally. When eosinophil concentrations were subjected to a square-root transformation, the transformed data for patients with and without metastases were different both for tumor from the margin (P = 0.001) and for tumor remote from the margin (P = 0.021).