Pleomorphic adenoma and adenoid-cystic carcinoma of salivary glands: immunohistochemical assessment of proliferative activity in comparison with flow-cytometric study

Abstract

In this study, 32 pleomorphic adenomas (PAs) and seven adenoid cystic carcinomas (ACCs) were analysed for the evaluation of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) indices and flow cytometric variables. Our aim was to assess any possible relationship between these parameters and the clinico-pathological variables and to clarify their histogenesis and reasons for their biological differences. The tumours were divided into three groups, mainly epithelial (E), myxoid (M) and chondroid (C); PCNA labelling index (LI) and weighted mean index (WI) and the WI/LI ratio were analysed in the predominant components; a single PCNA index, weighted by the percentage of each component, was also calculated. Only WI/LI was found to be significantly different in the three components, while PCNA single index did not show either significant differences by sex, age, site and size, or any correlation with the S phase fraction. A significant difference was found between PAs and ACCs by site (P < 0.01) and DNA ploidy (P < 0.05); furthermore, all PCNA indices (single index) were significantly lower in PAs than in ACCs.

The clinical relevance of ploidy and S-phase fraction determination in salivary gland tumors: A flow cytometric study of 97 cases

“…Greiner et al4 reported that 95% of the adenoid cystic carcinomas were diploid, and also suggest that SPF may be more useful than ploidy in predicting disease prognosis. Daniele et al21 immunohistochemically assessed the proliferating cell nuclear antigen nuclear expression in a series of 32 pleomorphic adenomas and 7 adenoid cystic carcinomas and suggested that the distinct biologic behavior of the two types of tumors could be explained by differences in their proliferative activity, which were higher in the latter, in keeping with the conclusions of Saka et al33 in their image cytometry study. Using a distinct methodology to estimate cell proliferation, our data do not support this view, because a similar value for the mean SPFs was found in the two types of neoplasms.…”

“…Saka et al33 studied a series of 17 mixed tumors by image cytometry and did not find DNA aneuploidy cases. Atula et al34 reported aneuploid clones in 7 of 119 pleomorphic adenomas evaluated, and Daniele et al21 mentioned only 1 of 32 similar cases. These observations were reinforced by data from cytogenetic studies in pleomorphic adenoma,35, 36 which noted specific chromosomal alterations and normal karyotypes associated with either minor or absent quantitative changes of nuclear DNA content.…”

“…However, it is well known that DNA histograms obtained from paraffin embedded material show, in many instances, poor quality due to excessive cell debris and wide peaks, which can obscure or falsely reveal the presence of abnormal stemlines, and further impair the reliability of S‐phase determination 17. In addition, only a few studies dealing with the proliferative activity of salivary gland tumors have been undertaken, with the majority of them using immunocytochemical techniques 18–24…”

DNA-Ploidie und proliferative Aktivität bei Speicheldrüsentumoren

“…Dies steht im Einklang mit anderen durchflusszytophotometrischen Untersuchungen [38,40]. Allerdings berichten einige Studien von gelegentlichem Auftreten aneuploider pleomorpher Adenome [1,6,7], so dass die Entwicklung aneuploider Karyotypen bei diesen Tumoren nicht grundsätzlich ausgeschlossen werden kann. Alle vier Rezidive pleomorpher Adenome dieser Studie waren DNA-diploid.…”

Proliferative activity in oral salivary gland tumors: the role of PCNA and AgNOR assessed by a double staining technique

“…Although both tumors originate in the intercalated duct with the same cellular derivation (15) and secretion of proteins of the extracellular matrix (16), they exhibit the characteristic behavior of benign and malignant tumors, respectively, coupled with distinct proliferative activity (17)(18)(19)(20) The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of PCNA and AgNOR in the assessment of salivary gland tumor proliferation using a double staining technique.…”