OPTIMIZATION OF A BATTERY USING 9 IMMUNOCYTOCHEMICAL VARIABLES FOR DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN EPITHELIAL MESOTHELIOMA AND ADENOCARCINOMA

A battery of immunocytochemical analyses, previously established to di stinguish between malignant mesothelioma and metastatic adenocarcinoma , was extended by analysing the same cases with three other commercial ly available antibodies. Altogether, 11 antibodies were studied in mes otheliomas diagnosed by other means, using 14 different immunocytochem ical parameters. Logistic regression analysis indicated that the follo wing parameters were of importance for this diagnostic problem: viment in reactivity in epithelial cells (1), cytokeratin (CAM 5.2) reactivit y in spindle-shaped (fibrous) cells (2), cell membrane-associated reac tivity of EMA (3), HBME-1 (4) and thrombomodulin (5), and absence of r eactivity to CEA (6), CD15 (7), BerEp4 (8) and Sialyl-TN (9). The anal ysis gave an algorithm with which a specific diagnosis of mesothelioma could be made in 80% of the cases-i.e., some improvement compared to the 55% sensitivity using the previous battery.