Abstract

• Formalin fixed cervical tissues from 169 patients were grouped and investigated by a modified mixed cell agglutination reaction(MCAR) for the detection of isoantigens A, B and O(H). Isoantigens were demonstrated in most of the normal and metaplastic epithelium. In dysplasia, the severer the degree, the more frequent the loss of isoantigen was detected. In cervical cancer, majority was negative for MCAR and this antigenic loss was more prominent in invasive carcinoma than in microinvasive and in situ carcinoma. In summary, general benign mucosa, less dysplastic change, in situ carcinoma and keratinizing invasive carcinoma were demonstrated higher frequencies of isoantigens as compared with their worse counterparts. Normal epithelium nearer to the tumor was detected frequent loss of antigenic properties and this might be helpful feature for presumptive diagnosis when diagnostic biopsy was failed to obtain the cancer tissue proper. This phenomenon suggested functional dedifferentiation preceding morphologic anaplasia as other reports suggested.