GROWTH-ACTIVITY IN HYPERPLASTIC AND NEOPLASTIC HUMAN THYROID DETERMINED BY AN IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL STAINING PROCEDURE USING MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODY MIB-1

To increase our understanding of the basic biological mechanisms of th yroid diseases, growth activity (GA) in 232 thyroid lesions was determ ined by immunohistochemistry using monoclonal antibody MIB-1. The GA t ended to be higher in hyperplastic lesions, adenomatous goiter (MIB-1- positive cell rate, 0.73%), and Graves' disease (1.68%) than in normal tissue (0.19%). The GA for differentiated thyroid carcinomas (2.00%) was much lower than for adenocarcinomas of other organs, such as breas t, lung, stomach and colon (44.67%). Of the thyroid carcinomas, the hi ghest GA was observed in undifferentiated carcinomas (32.67%), and fol licular carcinomas (3.18%) showed a higher GA than papillary carcinoma s (1.83%). There was no significant difference between the GA of folli cular carcinomas and solid/trabecular adenomas, although widely invasi ve follicular carcinomas showed a higher GA than minimally invasive ca rcinomas. No significant correlations between GA and patient age, sex, and tumor diameter, metastasis, or histological features were observe d in papillary carcinomas. Familial medullary carcinomas showed a high er GA than sporadic tumors. All latent papillary carcinomas had a very low GA. Our findings suggest that immunohistochemical investigation u sing the antibody MIB-1 contributes to the understanding of growth cha racteristics and biological activities in thyroid diseases. Copyright (C) 1995 by W.B. Saunders Company