Somatostatin Receptor Type 2 (SSTR2) in Bronchopulmonary Carcinoids
- PDF / 407,038 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 30 Downloads / 180 Views
Somatostatin Receptor Type 2 (SSTR2) in Bronchopulmonary Carcinoids Matteo Fassan & Federico Rea & Roberto Clemente & Giovanna Rizzardi & Marco Pizzi & Luciano Giacomelli & Massimo Rugge
Published online: 18 May 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Keywords Bronchopulmonary carcinoids . Atypical carcinoid . Typical carcinoid . Somatostatin receptor . Immunohistochemistry
To the Editors: Bronchopulmonary carcinoids (BCs) are uncommon neuroendocrine tumours, accounting for no more than 2% of all primary lung malignancies. BCs are generally regarded as benign or low-grade neoplasms, with atypical carcinoids (AC) being associated with a worse prognosis than the typical variant (TC) [1].
M. Fassan : R. Clemente : M. Pizzi : M. Rugge (*) Pathology Unit, Department of Medical Diagnostic Sciences and Special Therapies, University of Padova, Via Aristide Gabelli, 61, 35121 Padova, Italy e-mail: [email protected] F. Rea : G. Rizzardi Thoracic Surgery Unit, Department of Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy R. Clemente : M. Rugge Pathology Unit, Istituto Oncologico Veneto IOV-IRCCS, Padova, Italy L. Giacomelli Unit of Surgical Pathology, Azienda Ospedaliera di Padova, Padova, Italy
Surgical removal is the first choice of treatment, but somatostatin analogues can be required in non-resectable or recurrent tumours. The inhibitory effects of somatostatin analogues on hormone secretion (and cell proliferation) are mediated by somatostatin receptors (SSTRs) and SSTR type2 (SSTR2), in particular. At present, only small series of human BCs have been analysed using immunohistochemistry (IHC) and/or RTPCR analyses on SSTR2 expression [2–5], which has been found consistently correlated with octreoscan findings [3– 5]. We recently investigated the IHC expression of SSTR2 (Chemicon International Inc., Hofheim, Germany) in a single-institution series (Padova University) of 79 radicallytreated BC patients (69 TC and 10 AC). Synchronous lymph node metastases were found in six cases (7.6%), all staged as pN1. After surgery, all patients were followed up for at least 36 months or until death (range, 31–179 months, median 82.6). Six patients experienced recurrent disease and four of them died of tumour-related causes. SSTR2 expression was classified into three groups according to the intensity of immunostaining: 0=negative; 1+=low intensity; 2+=high intensity. Results were reported as positive when staining was observed in at least 10% of the tumour cells. When staining intensity was heterogeneous, the highest result was retained for scoring. All but three BCs consistently expressed SSTR2 immunostaining (Fig. 1). AC was associated with a lower expression of SSTR2 than TC (TC, 0=1; 1+=49; 2+=19; AC, 0=2; 1+=7; 2+=1) that reached a marginal statistical significance (p=0.048). At the cellular level, staining was observed both in the cytoplasm and at the cell membrane. In 1+ cases, the reactivity was generally cytoplasmic, whereas in 2+ cases additional membrane reinforcement
Endocr Patho
Data Loading...
