The Contribution of Histochemical and Immunohistochemical Techniques in Assessing the Proliferative Capacity and Prognosis for Renal Cell Carcinoma

The drive to prolong life and to improve life quality in patients suffering from cancer forms of any kind means that, aside from the necessary treatment, prognostic evaluations are needed. In our present study we included 63 patients with renal cell carcinoma. The histological samples obtained in surgery were studied through the classical histopathology methods, histochemical and immunohistochemical techniques. The histological degree of tumor differentiation was assessed for all cases, falling within all 4 classification grades. The immunohistochemical reaction for PCNA (proliferating cell nuclear antigen) was performed, utilizing the PC 10-LSAB antibody through visualization with the LSAB-DAB kit. This was the method used for assessing the process of tumor proliferation. Subsequently, the histological degree of differentiation was correlated with the PCNA score. We anticipate a reserved prognosis for patients with a positive expression on most tumor cells, which represents a high PCNA score.