Immunohistochemical study of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in gynecological tumors and their related lesions

: We have investigated whether monoclonal antibody (PC10) of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) could be useful as a marker of proliferating cells within formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 140 gynecological tumors and their related lesions. There was a positive correlation (r = 0.76) between the labelling index for PCNA and that for Ki67. Immunohistochemical staining for PC10 was confined to the nucleus and showed a diffuse or granular pattern or a mixture of both. The distribution of PC10 staining in non-neoplastic tissues was localized to proliferating cell compartments. In malignant tissues, the localization of the distribution of PCNA-positive cells came to be lost and the proportion of positive cells varied from case to case as well as from field to field within the same tissue section. The cases in which more than 31% of cells were positive for PCNA were as follows: Cervical squamous dysplasia 2/3, squamous carcinoma in situ 2/5, microinvasive squamous carcinoma 2/2, invasive squamous carcinoma 9/13, adenocarcinoma in situ 4/4, microinvasive adenocarcinoma 3/3, invasive adenocarcinoma 6/7, endometrial adenocarcinoma 6/25, ovarian epithelial malignant tumors 11/17, sex cord stromal tumors 2/14, and germ cell tumors 3/22. It is concluded that immunohistochemical staining for PC10 may be useful as a marker for proliferating activity of the cells both in normal and tumor tissues rather than for malignancy.