Histogenesis of intestinal and diffuse types of gastric carcinoma.

The quantitative distribution of different types of mucins in diffuse and intestinal-type gastric carcinomas and in the carcinomas of the small intestine and colon was compared with that of mucins in normal gastric and intestinal mucosa. The series consisted of 54 patients resected for carcinomas of the stomach or intestine. With regard to the histogenesis of the intestinal-type gastric carcinoma, the mixed composition of mucins indicated that the complete type of intestinal metaplasia cannot be the origin of the carcinoma. The intestinal type rather seems to originate from the regenerating epithelium in chronic atrophic gastritis with incomplete type of intestinal metaplasia. In the diffuse type of carcinoma a relative abundance of neutral mucins typical of normal gastric mucosa was demonstrated. This supports the hypothesis that this tumour type originates from nonmetaplastic gastric epithelium and the intestinal characteristics of diffuse carcinomas develop in the neoplastic tissue.