Jürgen Retter, P H Collet, U Böcker, M V Singer, G Kähler
For decades, methylene blue has been used in gastrointestinal endoscopy as an absorbing dye, it was, however, not approved for that purpose and has now been withdrawn from the market. A possible substitute is toluidine blue, an acidophilic, metachromatic dye that selectively stains cell nuclei; accordingly, since 2007, toluidine blue has been approved as a topical diagnostic agent in chromoendoscopy. Cells with increased DNA synthesis are stained more intensively so that not only malignant cells but also erosions, ulcerations and inflammatory areas are stained with toluidine blue because of the increased reparative cellular processes...
September 2010: Zeitschrift Für Gastroenterologie