Km. Murphy et T. Olivry, Comparison of T-lymphocyte proliferation in canine epitheliotropic lymphosarcoma and benign lymphocytic dermatoses, VET DERMATO, 11(2), 2000, pp. 99-105
The lesions of patch/plaque cutaneous T-cell lymphosarcoma (CTCL) are simil
ar to many benign inflammatory dermatoses, both histopathologically and cli
nically. In humans, attempts to develop a simple, reliable immunophenotypic
technique to differentiate between the malignant and benign dermatoses hav
e been unsuccessful. The purpose of our study was to determine, using a pro
liferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA)/CD3 double immunolabelling technique
of paraffin-embedded sections, if the rate of T-cell proliferation in cani
ne CTCL was greater than that of other diseases with non-neoplastic lymphoc
yte epitheliotropism. We selected cases of patch/plaque (PP) and tumour sta
ge CTCL, erythema multiforme (EM) and cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE).
We did not find a significant difference in the rate of T-cell proliferatio
n in the epithelia nor the superficial dermis between PP-CTCL and EM. Where
as epithelial T-cell proliferation is significantly higher in PP-CTCL than
CLE, it is not diagnostically useful because of overlap in the labelling in
dices.