Immunocytochemistry in the Diagnosis of Pathological Conditions of the Ear, Nose and Throat

Abstract

Immunological methods have recently been applied with success to the problems of diagnosis in histopathology. Although pathological anatomy has been a foundation of medical diagnosis for hundreds of years, strengthened over the past century by the addition of microscopy of diseased tissues, a serious deficiency in modern medicine has been the inability of pathologists to ascribe a molecular basis to morphological tissue changes. Because of this, by the 1960s, the reputation which pathologists had built up for their science in medical diagnosis had become diminished. This loss appeared magnified by notable advances in other medical diagnostic fields, notably radiology and biochemistry. Immunology was gaining importance in clinical medicine and, by the early 1970s, sufficient technical expertise had developed in this field for molecular identifications to be made within cells through the specificity of the antigen-antibody combination. In subsequent years, the efficiency of this method was much improved and its application to histopathological diagnosis was now possible. The last ten years have witnessed an outpouring of pathological discoveries utilizing antigen-antibody methods for identification of diagnostic substances in pathological tissues. Pathological changes in the ear, nose and throat have participated in this resurgence. It was fortunate that this came about at a time when clearer ideas had been developed using routine staining methods for the classification of pathological conditions of the ear, nose and throat, as a result of which thenewimmunological methods could be applied to entities whose places in the nosology of otolaryngic diseases were now accepted.