Turkish Neurosurgery 1996 , Vol 6 , Num 1-2
THE USE OF PCNA IMMUNOHISTOCHEMISTRY IN THE EVAIUATION OF CHOROID PLEXUS TUMOURS
Figen SÖYLEMEZOĞLU1, Kamil ÖGE2, Behsan ÖNOL1, Aykut ERBENGİ2
1Hacettepe University, Medical School, Departments of Pathology, Ankara, Türkiye
2 Hacettepe University, Medical School, Departments of Neurosurgery, Ankara, Türkiye
In diagnostic neuropathology, the histological distinctions between normal choroid plexus, typical and atypical choroid plexus papilloma and choroid plexus carcinoma may cause difficulties. Immunohistochemistry was applied for proliferating cell nuclear antigen on 7 samples of normal choroid plexus, 12 typical papillomas, 10 atypical papillomas, and 3 choroid plexus carcinomas to evaluate the use of this technique in differential diagnoses. Significant differences were found in the mean proliferating cell nuclear antigen labelling indices between normal choroid plexus (1.3 ± 1.2) and typical choroid plexus papilloma (3.1 ± 2.1), typical choroid plexus papilloma and atypical choroid plexus papilloma with p values of 0.021 and 0.0013, respectively. There is also a significant difference between typical and atypical choroid plexus papillomas (p=0.003). The amount of choroid plexus carcinoma cases in our series was low for a meaningful statistical analysis. Though no statistical analysis was carried out, the proliferating cell nuclear antigen labelling indices of 3 cases of choroid plexus carcinoma were relatively high with values of 17.7,21.9 and 27.5%.

These results suggested that proliferating cell nuclear antigen labelling index can be of use to differentiate normal choroid plexus from choroid plexus papilloma in small, diagnostically difficult biopsy specimens. Keywords : Choroid plexus tumours, normal choroid plexus, PCNA, immunohistochemistry, cell kinetics

Corresponding author : Figen Söylemezoğlu