Specimens of histologically normal and pathologic colonic mucosa in man with diseases such as ulcerative colitis, adenomatous polyps, carcinoma, acute and chronic diverticulitis, and acute suppurative appendicitis revealed similar spheroidal bodies demonstrable with the Feulgen's technique. These bodies were found intracellularly in epithelial cells and extracellularly in the adjacent lamina propria or stroma and in luminal material. They were localized mostly in cytoplasm but in certain cases were also found within nuclei. The presence of inclusion bodies in benign and malignant intestinal polyps and in ulcerative colitis has been previously reported by others, who suggested that they are evidence of the viral nature of these diseases. The reactivity of inclusion bodies with the Feulgen's technique is merely cytochemical evidence that they contain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Since this technique does not indicate the origin and pathway of formation of the DNA shown in inclusion bodies, more factual evidence is required to support the stimulating hypotheses that they are cytologic evidence of the viral nature of intestinal polyps and ulcerative colitis. Inclusion bodies were found in 66 percent of the cases of ulcerative colitis in this study. The incidence of carcinoma in patients with ulcerative colitis is 3 to 6 percent in various series. Therefore, the suggested relationship between ulcerative colitis and intestinal polyps and carcinoma, on the basis of the finding of inclusion bodies in all these conditions, seems not to be supported by the correlation frequency of inclusion bodies and incidence of carcinoma in ulcerative colitis. It is suggested that degenerating cell processes and migration of leukocytes through the epithelium of the intestinal mucosa may account for the particles of DNA in the intestinal mucosa of man reported in this and other studies.
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Monis et al. (1961) studied this question.