Cytoblock preparations for examination of cervical and other cells.

There are a number of antibodies which may be of value in the investigation of cervical smears, effusion, and cells grown in monolayer culture. The Shandon Cytoblock method was used to prepare discs of such cells suitable both for diagnosis and for a variety of other techniques.

Congenital absence of fallopian tube and ovary.

Absence of one or both uterine tubes and ovaries is a finding that has rarely been described. Two such cases are presented. In one the anatomical abnormalities were discovered during investigations for primary infertility, in the other the absence was discovered at the time of laparoscopic sterilisation. There are two possible aetiologies. The first involves an asymptomatic torsion of one or both adnexes during adult life or childhood, or even before birth. Alternatively, the absence may be congenital, due either to a defect in the development of the entire Müllerian and Mesonephric systems on one side, or to a defect localised to the region of the genital ridge and the caudal part of the Müllerian duct.

TDM35--a new monoclonal antibody to the XH1 cervical carcinoma cell line. Characterization and immunoperoxidase localization in benign and malignant tissues.

The murine monoclonal IgG1 kappa antibody TDM35 was raised against the cervical carcinoma cell line XH1. The antibody recognizes 18.5-66 kDa NCA-like glycoproteins and immunostains a variety of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded normal, benign, and malignant tissues. It is of value in the diagnosis of carcinoma of the exocrine pancreas and it identifies foci of squamous and glandular differentiation in other tumours. TDM35 should form a useful addition to a panel of antibodies for the evaluation of epithelial lesions.

XH1--a new cervical carcinoma cell line and xenograft model of tumour invasion, 'metastasis' and regression.

A new cell line, XH1, has been derived from an invasive focally keratinising adenosquamous carcinoma of the cervix in a 32 year old patient. It has been maintained in long term monolayer culture for 26 months, and passaged over 100 times (much greater than 300 population doublings). It is aneuploid with a mean chromosome number of 78. Examination using two minisatellite hypervariable DNA probes has shown it to be different from other cell lines maintained in this laboratory and from HeLa. Two sublines, XH1a and XH1b, show marked differences in monolayer culture, growth in soft agar, and xenograft formation. XH1 and XH1a cells readily form subcutaneous xenografts, and lung colonies can be established by their intravenous injection. Subcutaneous injection of XH1b cells results in rapid cell growth for a few days after which the tumour undergoes degeneration and then regresses completely. The XH1 karyotype has many rearranged chromosomes. Parental XH1 cells and both sublines show integration of HPV16 into the genome.

The immunoperoxidase localization of tumour markers in ovarian cancer: the value of CEA, EMA, cytokeratin and DD9.

Primary tumours from 40 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer, treated at St Thomas's Hospital over a 10-year period, were studied for the immunocytochemical expression of the following tumour markers in formalin-fixed paraffin embedded material: carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), epithelial membrane antigen (EMA), cytokeratin (CAM 5.2), and DD9. An indirect immunoperoxidase staining technique was used. All of the tumours were positive for EMA and CAM 5.2, and 30% of them were positive for both CEA and DD9. The absence of CEA and DD9 may be of value in differentiating between metastatic abdominal adenocarcinomas of ovarian origin and those of gastrointestinal origin, but no indication of prognosis was obtained using these epithelial markers. The strong and widespread staining of all the tumours for EMA suggests that this may be a useful marker for detecting metastatic or recurrent disease by immunoscintigraphy.