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. 1992 Feb;119(2):106–110. doi: 10.1007/BF01209665

Argyrophilic nucleolar organizer region counts and proliferating cell nuclear antigen scores are two reliable indicators of survival in pharyngeal carcinoma

A Pich 1,✉, L Chiusa 1, P Pisani 2, M Krengli 2, F Pia 2, R Navone 1
PMCID: PMC12201321  PMID: 1358893

Abstract

The proliferative activity of pharyngeal carcinoma has been investigated by means of monoclonal antibody PC10 against proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA/cyclin) and argyrophilic nucleolar organizer region (AgNOR) analysis in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded biopsies from 45 primary squamous and undifferentiated carcinomas, prior to therapy.

The correlation between AgNOR counts and PCNA(PC10) scores was highly significant (r=0.73;P<0.0001) as determined by Pearson's correlation coefficient. Moreover, the univariate Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed a significant correlation between 3- and 5-year survival rates and the mean AgNOR number per tumour cell (P=0.0003) or the percentage of PCNA(PC10)-positive cells (P=0.0001).

Our results indicate that both AgNOR counts and PCNA(PC10) scores are reliable markers of the proliferative activity of pharyngeal carcinoma in small, routinely processed biopsies, in which they can allow simultaneous evaluation of the histology and tumour cell kinetics.

Key words: Nucleolar organizer regions, PCNA, Pharyngeal carcinoma, Prognosis

Abbreviations

AgNOR

argyrophilic protein associated with nucleolar organizer regions

PCNA

proliferating cell nuclear antigen

Footnotes

This work was supported by grants from the Italian Ministero dell'Universitá e Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (60%) and Lega Italiana per la lotta contro i tumori, Sezione di Novara.

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