Solid microparticles, whose diameter lies far in the micrometer range (μm), such as pollen, spores, starch-granules, cellulose particles, silicates, crystals, diatoms, soot particles and other natural and industrial dusts are regularly incorporated in a noteworthy quantity in the alimentary tract. Their paracellular translocation through transitory leaks in the epithelial cell layer has been co...

Diversion colitis is an iatrogenic disorder related to surgical diversion of the faecal stream from the colorectal mucosa, first described by Morson in 1972. Inflammation of the defunctioned mucosa seems to be related to deprivation of luminal nutrients, in particular short chain fatty acids. Histologic abnormalities include damage of the epithelium and reparative changes with crypt distortion ...

VIP-, substance P- and met-enkephalin-containing innervation of the human gastroduodenal mucosa and Brunner's glands was studied by immunocytochemistry on whole mount tissue preparations. A dense VIP-containing nerve supply was found around fundic and pyloric glands, while the few and scattered substance P-immunoreactive fibres tended to run across the full thickness of the gastric mucosa. In t...

Intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) have been counted in the jejunal mucosa of adult Wistar rats submitted to a protein-free diet for 84 days and of a control group receiving a 20% casein diet, in order to evaluate the effect of protein deprivation. Relative counts (IEL/100 epithelial cells), absolute counts (number of IEL per millimetre of muscularis mucosae), and the proportion of lymphocytes c...

INTRODUCTION Primary adenocarcinomas resembling submucosal tumors are rare in the gastrointestinal tract. Almost all the submucosal tumor-like adenocarcinomas previously reported invaded the submucosa or deeper. Therefore, submucosal tumor-like lesions are usually treated by surgical resection, and those that arise in the duodenum have been treated by pancreaticoduodenectomy. CASE PRESENTATIO...

Extensively washed, ethanol fixed and paraffin embedded colonic specimens from 15 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and nine patients with Crohn's disease (CD) of the colon, ileal specimens from six patients with CD of the ileum, and histologically normal control specimens obtained from 10 patients operated for colonic carcinoma, were examined by immunohistochemistry with a monoclonal antib...

Squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus with cancer invasion beyond the muscularis mucosae is known to have lymph node metastasis and lymphatic or blood vessel invasion compared with intramucosal carcinoma. In submucosal and T2-3 carcinoma, lymph node and lymphatic/vascular involvement are shown more frequently, leading to a poor prognosis. Therefore, we examined proliferative activity of esop...

A 75-year old woman with a complex past medical history was found unresponsive in her nursing home room. She was transported to the Emergency Department where attempts at life support were unsuccessful. She had been admitted to the hospital two weeks earlier because of abdominal pain. According to the history, she had been experiencing diarrhea for the week prior to that admission. Her physicia...

Crohn's disease (CD) is a relapsing chronic inflammatory disorder that may involve all the gastrointestinal tract with a prevalence of terminal ileum. Intestinal lesions have a characteristic discontinuous and segmental distribution and may affect all layers of the gut wall. Telocytes (TC), a peculiar type of stromal cells, have been recently identified in a variety of tissues and organs, inclu...

Gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) is a mechanism for direct cell-to-cell signalling and is mediated by gap junctions (GJs), which consist of proteins called connexins (Cxs). GJIC plays a critical role in tissue development and differentiation and is important in maintenance of tissue homeostasis. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the expression of Cx26, Cx32 and Cx43 in t...