The first international conference on the environmental health and safety of jet fuel.

Reduced glutathione (GSH) has been demonstrated in benign and malignant human breast lesions using a newly.developed histofluorescence technique. GSH was present in every lesion and in each case was localised to the epithelium. A semi-quantitative assessment revealed a moderate amount of GSH in normal epithelium and fibroadenoma and a high level in apocrine metaplasia, epitheliosis and intraduct carcinoma. Invasive ductal carcinoma contained a variable amount of GSH. Correlation between fluorescence intensity and histological grade of ductal carcinomas was almost statistically significant but a relationship to oestrogen receptor status was not detected. The rapid assessment of GSH in breast cancer may aid in the selection of optimum chemotherapeutic regimens. Reduced glutathione (GSH) is a thiol containing tripeptide which is involved in a variety of cellular functions. GSH has a role in the detoxification of drugs and carcinogens, protection of cells from free radical damage and reactive oxygen compounds, participates in protein and DNA synthesis and in the regulation of enzyme activity Altered levels of GSH are frequently observed in experimental animal neoplasia (Roomi et al., 1985, Fiala et al., 1976) but GSH levels in human neoplasia have been reported only for carcinomas of the stomach and colon (Siegers et al., 1983; Siegers et al., 1984). GSH in human breast tissue has not been investigated previously, although GSH-associated enzymes have been studied both biochemically (Di Ilio et al., 1985) and histochemically (Levine et al., 1983; Bard et al., 1986). Tumour GSH appears to be an important factor in determining the effectiveness of a variety of anti-cancer chemotherapeutic drugs, in general a low level of GSH being associated with increased chemotherapeutic efficiency (Arrick 1986). We have studied the localisation and amount of GSH in normal and pathological human breast tissue using our recently developed specific histofluorescence method for GSH (Murray et al., 1986). Materials and methods Breast tissue Breast tissue for this study was obtained from biopsies submitted for frozen section diagnosis to the Department of Pathology, University of Aberdeen. Usually one representative block (up to 1.5 x 1.5 x 1 cm) was taken from each biopsy. Four consecutive 30 gm sections were used for the demonstration of GSH. Two 8 gm sections were stained with toluidine blue and haematoxylin and eosin respectively for diagnostic purposes. (pH 8) for 10 min and then reacted with o-phthalaldehyde prepared as a 10mM solution in methanol and used at a 1 in 10 dilution in 0.1 …