Establishment of a quantitative assay of abnormal glycolipid expression in endometrial cells, and its diagnostic value for endometrial carcinoma.

We developed a new quantitative method for detecting abnormal glycolipid expression in endometrial cells using a monoclonal antibody (MSN-1) and analyzed the glycolipid antigen recognized by MSN-1 in 173 clinical endometrial cell samples (66 normal endometria, 39 endometrial hyperplasias, and 68 endometrial adenocarcinomas). The mean glycolipid antigen levels in normal endometrium, endometrial hyperplasia, and endometrial carcinoma were 0.42 +/- 1.37, 2.13 +/- 3.84, and 19.4 +/- 25.8 (mean +/- SD) units, respectively. If the cutoff rate of this assay was fixed at 1.8 units, the positivity rates for patients with normal endometrium, endometrial hyperplasia, and endometrial carcinoma were 6.1% (4/66), 28.2% (11/39), and 76.5% (52/68), respectively. In 35 endometrial carcinoma patients, endometrial smears were simultaneously performed, and there were 22 positive smears (62.9%). When the cytological diagnosis was combined with our assay, 94.3% (33/35) of the carcinomas were detected. Thus, this assay seems to be a supplementary diagnostic method for endometrial carcinoma.