The relationship between histochemical enzyme activities of brain tumors and clinical features of the patients.

Human brain turnors removed from 126 patients were histochemically examined and following results were obtained. 1. In general, alkaline phosphatase activity is decreased in poorly differentiated gliomas, but is not related to the tumor cell infiltration. 2. All the cases of alkaline phosphatase negative gliomas have poor reconvalescent course and most of the positive cases show good reconvalescence. 3. Alkaline phosphatase, leucine aminopeptidase and acid phosphatase activities are remarkable in fibroblastic meningioma, moderate or feeble in meningocytic meningioma, and negative in malignant meningioma. 4. The activities of alkaline phosphatase, β-esterase, leucine aminopeptidase and acid phosphatase are decreased in most of meningocytic meningiomas when the duration of symptoms and signs is short. 5. Succinic dehydrogenase, malic dehydrogenase, isocitric dehydrogenase and β-glucuronidase are strongly reactive in malignant meningioma; from strong to moderate in meningocytic meningioma and from moderate to feeble in fibroblastic meningioma. 6. There is a slight increasing tendency of the activities of succinic dehydrogenase, malic dehydrogenase, isocitric dehydrogenase in fibroblastic meningioma and p·glucuronidase for a short duration of symtoms and signs. 7. In the case of acoustic neurinomas the higher the alkaline phosphatase activity, the longer is the duration of symptoms and signs. ∗PMID: 4223617 [PubMed indexed for MEDLINE] Copyright c ©OKAYAMA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL SCHOOL Acta Med. Okayama 19, 293-306 (1965) THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HISTOCHEMICAL ENZYME ACTIVITIES OF BRAIN TUMORS AND CLINICAL FEATURES OF THE PATIENTS Takao KAWASHIMA, Kisaburo T AKEUCHI, Masato NAKAMURA and Takuro OGATA Department of Surgery & Neurological Surgery, Okayama University, Medical School, Okayama, Japan (Director: Prof. S. Tanaka) Received for publication, November 12, 1965 There are many reports of the histochemical studies on brain tissues and tumors concerning to their enzyme activities but the relation between the clinical feature and the enzyme activity of brain tumors has not yet been systefuatically studied. In order to make this point clear, the authors made the histochemical observations on human brain tumors referring to the clinical symptoms. In this paper it is reported that there are some relation between the appearance and duration of clinical symptoms and the enzyme activities of tumor tissues. MATERIALS AND METHODS The materials used were human brain tumors removed from 126 patients admitted to the attached hospital of Okayama University Medical School, Surgery and Neurosurgery Department, from June 1965. Two-thirds of these specimens were kept at 20°C immediately after the removal, and the rest were frozen quickly by ice aceton mixture. With these two groups of tumor specimens frozen sections of 20 microns in thickness were prepared in a -20°C cryostat for histochemical observations. The rest part of tumors was fixed in 10 per cent formol for the routine histologic observation, paraffin sections and hematoxylin eosin stain. For the histochemical demonstration of hydrolytic enzymes, the tissue sections were fixed in 10 per cent cold formalin and rinsed in distilled water, and then incubated with the specific medium prepared for each enzyme as follows. Alkaline phosphatase: 10 mg of sodium a-naphthyl phosphate were dissolved in 20 ml of CLARK and LUB'S buffer at pH 9.2 and 20 mg of fast blue B were added. The sections were incubated at 20°C for 30 minutes, dehydrated and mounted in balsam. Acid phosphatase: 10 mg of sodium a-naphthyl phosphate were dissolved in 20 ml of acetate buffer at pH 5.8, to which 20 mg of fast blue B were added. The sections were