study of nucleolar organizer regions in chronic gastritis, gastric dysplasia and gastric carcinoma

The silver colloid staining technique was used to count the number of Ag NORs associated protein in paraffin sections of chronic gastritis, gastric dysplasia and gastric adenocarcinoma. A significant difference in the mean number of Ag NORs per nucleus was found between: 1] control and gastric dysplasia or neoplasia, 2] chronic gastritis and gastric dysplasia or adenocarcinoma, 3] gastric dysplasia and gastric adenocarcinoma. However, there is no significant difference between control and chronic gastritis. These results indicate that this histochemical technique can be of value in diagnostic problems of borderline cases and have a role in the differentiation between chronic gastritis, gastric dysplasia and gastric adenocarcinoma