Validity of Tissue Microarray by Immunohistochemistry.

BACKGROUND: Tissue microarrays (TMAs) extract designated areas of tissue paraffin blocks in several units that are millimeters in diameter in a cylindrical fashion, array dozens of these tissue specimens, and then re-embed them. Here, a TMA was utilized to analyze renal cell carcinoma (RCC) specimens with anti-FABP7 and anti-Brn2 antibodies. METHODS: Paraffin-embedded specimens from 114 RCC patients were immunostained with anti-FABP7 and anti-Brn2 antibodies to examine the rate of agreement between the staining of TMA grafts compared to conventional tissue slice grafts. The staining area of the tumor was also examined. RESULTS: The positive ratio of anti-FABP7 was 74% and of anti-Brn2 was 57%. The rate of agreement of each antibody was 100% regardless of tumor size before extraction. CONCLUSIONS: Immunostaining of TMA slices might be effective for the analysis of RCC specimens.