Judge D M, Changaris D G, Harvey H R, Trapukdi S
Arch Pathol Lab Med. 1976 Sep;100(9):491-4.
Endocrine neoplasms of the thymus and mediastinum are uncommon. This report describes such a carcinoma and the difficulty in determining its true nature. A simple modification of the technique for formaldehyde-fume-induced fluorescence (FIF) demonstrated biogenic amines in the cells. Electron microscopy and histochemical findings confirmed the close relationship of these neoplasms with neural-crest cells capable of amine precursor uptake and decarboxylation (APUD). The FIF technique is also a more sensitive method of detecting these tumors, since it has less of the sampling problems of electron microscopy, and the fluorescent granules are more easily seen than those stained by the usual methods. The techniques are simple enough for screening all poorly differentiated carcinomas in this area to determine a more accurate incidence figure.
胸腺和纵隔的内分泌肿瘤并不常见。本报告描述了这样一种癌以及确定其真实性质的困难。对甲醛烟雾诱导荧光（FIF）技术的一项简单改进显示了细胞中的生物胺。电子显微镜和组织化学结果证实了这些肿瘤与能够摄取胺前体并进行脱羧（APUD）的神经嵴细胞密切相关。FIF技术也是检测这些肿瘤的一种更灵敏的方法，因为它比电子显微镜的抽样问题少，而且荧光颗粒比用常规方法染色的颗粒更容易看到。这些技术足够简单，可用于筛查该区域所有低分化癌，以确定更准确的发病率数据。
