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An immunocytochemical battery comprising 9 antibodies specifically distinguishes 80% of the epithelial malignant mesotheliomas from adenocarcinomas. The discriminatory power of antibodies to calretinin was tested together with this battery to determine whether the performance thereby could be improved. The study comprises 119 mesotheliomas of epithelial or mixed phenotype and 57 adenocarcinoma metastases in the pleural cavity. The differences between the 2 groups were highly significant for all recorded parameters, but typical reactivity for all parameters was seen in only 6 (5.0%) of the 119 mesotheliomas. An algorithm based on stepwise logistic regression was used to interpret divergent reaction patterns. Most diagnostic information was obtained with 8 of the parameters studied. The resulting algorithm identified almost 90% of the mesotheliomas with high specificity. The battery can be performed in 2 steps: several adenocarcinomas first are diagnosed with a few antibodies, applying the rest of the battery on the remaining unresolved cases.

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Sections from the nasal cavity of 12-day-old Swiss albino mice (NMRI strain) were subjected to lectin histochemistry. A panel of biotinylated lectins (Con A, WGA, s-WGA, PNA, SBA, DBA and UEA I) and a horseradish peroxidase-conjugated lectin (GSA II) showed marked differences in binding to the respiratory and the neuroepithelial cells. SBA (affinity for galactose and N-acetylgalactosamine), PNA (galactose) and WGA (sialic acids and N-acetylglucosamine) labelled the receptor neurons in the olfactory and vomeronasal epithelium. DBA (N-acetylgalactosamine) labelled a subgroup of about 5% of the olfactory receptor neurons, but most neurons in the vomeronasal organ. UEA I (fucose) and s-WGA (N-acetylglucosamine) intensely labelled the entire nerve cell population in the vomeronasal organ, but in the olfactory epithelium the labelling with these lectins was stratified. In the respiratory epithelium the ciliated cells were labelled with WGA and s-WGA, while the secretory cells bound most of the lectins. Thus different sugars are exposed on the surface of the different types of epithelia in the nasal cavity, providing a basis for selectivity in microbial attacks on these areas.