ESTROGEN AND PROGESTERONE RECEPTORS IN HUMAN MENINGIOMAS - BIOCHEMICAL AND IMMUNOCYTOCHEMICAL EVALUATION

BACKGROUND The observation that human meningiomas are rich in steroid hormone receptors has led to the hypothesis that their growth may be h ormonally dependent. This study aims to correlate the biochemical expr ession of estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptors (PgR) with their nu clear immunoreactivity in a large series of meningiomas. METHODS The o ccurrence of ER and PgR in patients with primary untreated meningiomas was studied with a dextran-coated charcoal method (DCC) and the resul ts were compared with those of an immunocytochemical assay (ICA). Prog esterone and estrogen receptor determinations were performed on 103 an d 99 meningiomas respectively using the DCC assay. Forty-six and 44 of these samples were immunocytochemically evaluated for the presence of PgR and ER respectively. RESULTS Of the 46 samples evaluated by both the methods, 89% were found PgR positive by DCC and 70% by ICA. The ov erall concordance between PgR-DCC and PgR-ICA was 80%. Whereas low con centrations of ER were found in 8/44 samples (18%) assayed by DCC, spe cific staining was never observed in any of the samples tested by ICA. CONCLUSIONS Our findings confirm that the majority of meningiomas are devoid of ER and that the biochemical evidence of PgR correlates well with the nuclear localization of progesterone receptors determined by immunocytochemistry.