甲状腺癌の免疫組織化学的検討

Abstract

To demonstrate the immunohistochemical properties of thyroid cancer, we used antithyroglobulin antibody staining and anti-PCNA antibody staining in a studies of six patients (two males and four females), four with undifferentiated thyroid cancer and two with papillary carcinoma of the thyroid who were treated at Tokyo Medical College Hospital. One of the patients with undifferentiated cancer also had papillary carcinoma. Observations were carried out separately of cells from undifferentiated and papillary carcinoma sites.The evaluation method was a qualitative examination of anti-thyroglobulin antibody staining and anti-PCNA antibody staining of 1, 000 cancer cells. All the cells showing uniform staining of the nucleus were considered to be labeled cells. The percentage of positive staining was calculated.All of the undifferentiated cancers were negative for anti-thyroglobulin antibody staining, whereas all of the papillary carcinomas were positive.The rate of positive anti-PCNA antibody staining was 10.8-35.5% in the undifferen-tiated cancers and 1.2-2.8% in the papillary carcinomas. A clear difference in anti-PCNA antibody staining was thus found between these two types of thyroid cancer.Undifferentiated cancer of the thyroid is a comparatively rare disease. In the present study, also, the number was small, and it was thus impossible to demonstrate clearly a statistically significant correlation between the results of immunohistochemical staining and the outcome. However, undifferentiated cancer and papillary carcinoma showed definite characteristic patterns of staining which corresponded with the differences in their outcome and presumably with their degrees of malignancy.