Cryostat section assay of oestrogen and progesterone receptors in meningiomas: a clinicopathological study.

Abstract

These observations have prompted several investigations into the presence of oestrogen receptor and progesterone receptor in meningiomas,8-26 and it has been postulated that the presence of such receptors might be of prognostic and therapeutic value, as for breast carcinoma. All of the assays performed to date have measured oestrogen receptor and progesterone receptor in the cytosol fractions from tissue homogenates of meningiomas. A wide range of results has been obtained, and although an associAccepted for publication 21 August 1985 ation between steroid hormone receptor state and histological subtype of meningioma has been claimed,'920 this observation has not been consistent.2123 Histological typing of meningiomas is usually performed on an adjacent portion of tumour to the sample taken for homogenisation and steroid receptor assay. These two portions of tissue, however, may not be exact replicates as meningiomas are heterogenous neoplasms which may exhibit considerable histological variability.'We overcame this problem by assaying oestrogen receptor and progesterone receptor in the diffusate of cryostat sections of meningiomas, thus allowing simultaneous histological analysis and steriod hormone receptor assay on adjacent near facsimile samples. This method is based on the observation that unoccupied oestrogen receptor and progesterone receptor readily diffuse from unfixed cryostat sections immersed in an aqueous medium without the need for mechanical homogenisation.27-29Material and methods Forty five consecutive meningiomas were studied from 40 patients (28 women, 12 men) of mean age 55 5 years (age range 33-79). Four patients (three women, one man) had multiple tumours; of these, one 44 on 10 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright.

Meningiomas and hormonal receptors: immunohistochemical study in typical and non-typical tumors

“…Ironside et al 10 describe 45 meningiomas with 3 malignant tumors, all of them without progesterone receptors, but the group was small to get conclusions.…”

“…It also permits retrospective studies with stored material and the detection of receptors even with small amount of tissue. The ER is undetectable in almost all of studies, using different techniques 6,10,16,17 . It appears that ER is actually devoid in this kind of tumors.…”

“…The majority of studies used receptor binding assays to detect the presence of ER and PR 5,6,10,14 . It has produced widely varied and confusing results, possible due to differences in the handling of tissue, variations in techniques, and criteria used in determining the receptor status based on levels of cytosolic receptor binding sites.…”

“…There are few papers 9,10,13,17 about the correlation between PR and ER and tumor grade in meningiomas while in other tumors, like breast and uterine cancer, there is a correlation between hormonal immunoreactivity and overall outcome 18 .…”

“…Also, it has been observed that these tumors often grow during pregnancy and luteal phase of the menstrual cycle 2 and there is an association between meningiomas and breast cancer and other tumors wich have hormonal dependency 3,4 . Based in these data, there have been many reports which have dealt with the presence of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR) in meningiomas [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] . In recent years, the development of monoclonal antibodies specific for steroid hormone receptors has permitted the detection of PR and ER direct in tissue.…”