PubMed ID: 225286
Author(s): Stowe GC 3rd, Zakov ZN, Albert DM, Smith TR, Sang DN, Craft JL. Vascular basophilia in ocular and orbital tumors. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 1979 Oct;18(10):1068-75. PMID 225286
Journal: Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Volume 18, Issue 10, Oct 1979
The occurrence of vascular basophilia in ocular tumors has been a selective histologic feature of retinoblastomas. We recently observed a metastatic oat-cell carcinoma to the choroid which also demonstrated such a vascular hematoxyphilia. Histologic review of a variety of ocular and orbital metastatic carcinomas failed to yield a similar basophilic pattern. Examination of 100 consecutive retinoblastomas for vascular basophilia revealed an incidence of 6.0%. Similar material was not seen in any of 125 melanomas, including 10 with areas of necrosis. Histochemical studies showed the basophilic material to be DNA, and electron microscopy revealed the nuclear debris of pyknotic tumor cells to be continuous with identical material surrounding the adjacent blood vessels. The pathogenesis of vascular deposition of DNA in these two ocular tumors remains unclear. This finding most likely represents a form of tumor activity requiring comparatively healthy blood vessels to adequately precipitate liberated nucleic acids being filtered from the necrotic and degenerating tumor tissue.