THE AMPHICRINE (ENDO-EXOCRINE) CELLS IN THE HUMAN GUT, WITH A SHORT REFERENCE TO AMPHICRINE NEOPLASIAS

  • 1 January 1980
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 28  (1-2) , 37-58
Abstract
In the human gastrointestinal tract the amphicrine cells are described as a form of endocrine cells. Depending on their behavior under silver impregnation, they are divided into 3 subgroups: the mucoargentaffine, the mucoargyrophilic and the mucoargyrophobic cells. Such cells have been observed in normal and regenerating rat and mouse stomachs. Human material including stomach (3 cases), appendix (12 cases), colon (1) and a series of amphicrine proliferations and tumors is presented. Two cases of chronic gastritis and 1 chronic peptic ulcer with metaplastic and regenerating epithelium contained mucoargyrophilic cells with mucus below the nucleus in the atypical glands. The possibility of endocrine granules being sluiced out in the mucous grains is discussed. Only 2 appendices were normal (ages 6 and 7 yr), 10 showed pathological changes: 7 neurogenic appendicopathies (14-58 yr), 1 lymphatic hyperplasia and 1 hyperplasia of mucoargyrophobic cells with mucostasis. Mucoargentaffine cells far outnumbered the mucoargyrophilic and mucoargyrophilic and mucoargyrophobic cells. The mucus may have an apical or basal location; in the latter case, paracrine secretion into the subepithelial lamina propria was seen. As neoplastic cells, the amphicrine cells form the rare amphicrine tumors (goblet-cell and muco-adenoid carcinoids) of the appendix and colon. They are also found in mucinous cystadenomas of the ovary in the enteral type of a nasal carcinoma and in a 5-HT[5-hydroxytryptamine]-carcinoid of the ovary. They are therefore to be regarded as a differentiation disorder of the endocrine cells under the pathological conditions of appendicopathy, hyperplasia, metaplasia and true neoplasias.