Healthy and diseased epithelium of the oral and maxillary sinus mucosa studied by X-ray microanalysis.

Concentrations of Na, Mg, P, S, Cl, K, and Ca in healthy and pathologically transformed epithelial cells of oral cavity and maxillary sinus mucosa in man were measured by X-ray microanalysis. Biopsies from normal mucosa, irradiated and clinically cured squamous cell carcinoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma from the oral cavity, and polyposis in the maxillary sinus were prepared by rapid freezing and cryosectioning. In normal mucosa, nuclei and cytoplasm of basal, intermediate and apical epithelial cells were analyzed. A slight decrease in the concentration of Na, Mg, P and Cl was found towards the apical cells. The concentration of Na in the nuclei of the different cell layers parallelled that of P. The elemental composition of the pathologically transformed cells differed markedly from that of the cells of healthy oral mucosa (higher Na and Cl). In the irradiated squamous cell carcinoma the concentrations of Mg and K were extremely low.