Increasing role of immunopathology in diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Increasing role of immunopathology in diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma, by K. Sheibani (Human Pathology, 1997).

The study

• Author: K. Sheibani
• Journal: Human Pathology
• Published: 1997;28(6):639-40
• Type of article: Comment, Editorial
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article was a two-page editorial, not a research study. It reported no new patients or data and did not mention asbestos. The author, from Western Medical Center and the University of Southern California, wrote that diagnosing malignant mesothelioma remained difficult because there was no specific marker for mesothelial cells or their tumors. The author said that, in their experience, a simple panel of a mucin stain and antibodies to broad-spectrum cytokeratin, Ber-EP4, Leu-M1 and CEA could reliably classify most cases when there was enough tissue. Finding Leu-M1, BerEP4 or CEA in tumor cells strongly favored carcinoma over mesothelioma, and diagnosis by these methods was still one of exclusion. The editorial discussed a separate study by Han and colleagues, published in the same journal issue, on the markers N-cadherin and E-cadherin. That series included one mesothelioma that was negative for N-cadherin and one adenocarcinoma that was weakly positive. The author called those results promising but said they needed confirmation in a larger series of patients and by independent groups of investigators.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Editorial (opinion and commentary, with no original data)
• Who was studied: None. The editorial did not study patients. It discussed the pathological diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma in general.
• Main results:
  • The author stated that no specific marker existed for mesothelial cells or their associated tumors.
  • The author stated that, in their own experience, a panel of a mucin stain and antibodies to broad-spectrum cytokeratin, Ber-EP4, Leu-M1 and CEA could reliably classify the majority of cases on sufficient tissue samples. This was the author's experience, not data reported in this editorial.
  • The author wrote that the presence of Leu-M1, BerEP4 or CEA in tumor cells generally strongly favored a diagnosis of carcinoma over mesothelioma.
  • The author wrote that the immunodiagnosis of mesothelioma was still one of exclusion, because no antibody had been found that reacted only with mesothelial cells.
  • Describing a separate study by Han and colleagues in the same journal issue, the author noted that its series included one mesothelioma negative for N-cadherin and one adenocarcinoma weakly positive for N-cadherin. The author took this to suggest that N-cadherin is neither entirely sensitive nor absolutely specific for mesothelial cells.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the N-cadherin results reported by Han and coworkers were promising but required confirmation with a larger series of patients and by independent groups of investigators. The author expressed hope that specific markers for mesothelioma would become available.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Malignant Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Differential expression of N-cadherin in pleural mesotheliomas and E-cadherin in lung adenocarcinomas in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues — A.C. Han, A. Peralta-Soler, et al. (1997)
• E-cadherin and calretinin: a useful combination of immunochemical markers for differentiation between mesothelioma and metastatic adenocarcinoma — M.P. Leers, M.M. Aarts, et al. (1998)
• E-cadherin, E-selectin and vascular cell adhesion molecule: immunohistochemical markers for differentiation between mesothelioma and metastatic pulmonary adenocarcinoma? — A.M. Müller, A. Weichert, et al. (2002)
• The differential expression of N-cadherin and E-cadherin distinguishes pleural mesotheliomas from lung adenocarcinomas — A. Peralta Soler, K.A. Knudsen, et al. (1995)
• E-cadherin in mesothelioma — M. Jeffers (1996)
• E-cadherin and cytokeratin subtype profiling in effusion cytology — J. Han, M.K. Kim, et al. (2004)

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