An ultrastructural and morphometric study of bladder tumours (II)

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Abstract
Summary Bladder tissues from 3 groups of patients were examined, using the light and electron microscopes (LM and TEM). One group of patients had a history of well-differentiated papillary transitional cell carcinomas and specimens were taken from cystoscopically normal areas. In a second group frank papillary carcinoma was biopsied. Finally, patients with no history of urothelial tumours and a normal cystoscopic appearance were biopsied during investigations for various benign conditions and these served as controls. In tissues from the first two groups certain differences were seen when these were compared to the controls and the frequency of these was significant. Light microscopic examination of 0.5 μ toluidine blue stained sections revealed an increased number of immature, small dark cells in the superficial layer of the epithelium (PP<0.001). These features were seen in the absence of cystoscopic and light microscopic changes in three out of eight patients with a history of tumours. It is, therefore, suggested that these are the earliest detectable morphological abnormalities in the pre-neoplastic urothelium.