[The immunohistochemical and electron microscopical study of pathological classification of Melkersson-Rosenthal syndrome].

OBJECTIVE: To prove further the pathological classification of Melkersson-Rosenthal syndrome (MRS) and observe the morphological features of the granuloma cells in MRS. METHODS: We studied 20 cases of MRS, with 10 cases of granuloma type and the other 10 cases of non-granuloma type. The negative results of periodic acid-schiff (PAS), Neelren anti-acid special staining and tuberculosis (TB)-DNA polymerase chain reaction proved that all cases were not TB and fungous disease. Then all the cases were labelled with antibody of lysozyme by immunohistochemical staining and investigated with electron microscope. We studied the expression of lysozyme in multinucleated giant cells, epithelioid cells and histiocytes. RESULTS: The results of lysozyme staining were positive in the multinucleated giant cells, epithelioid cells and histiocytes of the granuloma type and were negative in those cells of the non-granuloma type. On the other hand, the small multinucleated giant cells which had 2-3 nuclei were the features of the morphological structure of the granuloma type. The small multinucleated giant cells were not seen in the non-granuloma type. CONCLUSION: In this paper, two pathological types (granuloma and non-granuloma type) in the MRS were proved further and it is found that the different structures of granuloma can be used to discriminate between MRS and sarcoidosis and tuberculosis.