Nucleolar organizer regions in mesothelial proliferations

Our plain-English summary of Nucleolar organizer regions in mesothelial proliferations, by M. Ramael, J. Van den Bossche, C. Buysse, et al (The Journal of Pathology, 1992).

The study

• Authors: M. Ramael, J. Van den Bossche, C. Buysse, E. Van Marck
• Journal: The Journal of Pathology
• Published: 1992;167(4):435
• Type of article: Comment, Letter
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This letter to the editor, from pathologists at University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium, responded to an earlier article. It described the authors' own test of whether counting silver-stained nucleolar organizer regions (Ag-NORs), tiny structures in cell nuclei, could distinguish malignant pleural mesothelioma from reactive, non-cancerous mesothelium. The authors examined paraffin-embedded tissue and pleural fluid material from 25 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma and 25 patients with benign pleural effusions, counting 200 nuclei under a light microscope. In neoplastic mesothelium, the mean number of Ag-NORs per nucleus ranged from 1.74 to 3.64 (mean 2.44). In reactive mesothelium it ranged from 1.52 to 3.74 (mean 2.20). The difference was not statistically significant, and the large overlap made it impossible to tell the groups apart. Ag-NORs were haphazardly distributed in neoplastic cells but evenly distributed in non-neoplastic cells. The authors concluded that, in their hands, Ag-NOR counts were not suited to this distinction, and they called their conventional method not satisfactory. The letter did not discuss asbestos.

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: Letter to the editor reporting the authors' own laboratory comparison of a staining technique (Ag-NOR counts) in malignant versus reactive mesothelium
• Who was studied: Paraffin-embedded tissues and pleural effusions from 25 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, and paraffin-embedded cellular material from 25 patients with benign pleural effusions; Department of Pathology, University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium; dates not given
• Main results:
  • In neoplastic mesothelium, the mean number of Ag-NORs per nucleus ranged from 1.74 to 3.64, with a mean of 2.44 and SD of 0.40
  • In reactive mesothelium, the mean number of Ag-NORs ranged from 1.52 to 3.74, with a mean of 2.20 and SD of 0.60
  • There was no statistically significant difference in Ag-NOR numbers between malignant and reactive mesothelium (Student's t-test, P greater than 0.05)
  • There was great variation in counts in both groups, and the large overlap between them made differentiation impossible
  • In neoplastic mesothelial cells, Ag-NOR proteins were mainly in two or three nucleoli and haphazardly distributed; non-neoplastic mesothelial cell nucleoli had evenly distributed Ag-NORs
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that, in their hands, Ag-NOR counts are not suited for differentiating reactive from malignant mesothelium, and suggested studying a larger series with image analysis and back-scattered electron microscopy
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The authors stated that the conventional light microscopic evaluation method they used was not satisfactory

Topics

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

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• BAP1 (BRCA1-associated protein 1) is a highly specific marker for differentiating mesothelioma from reactive mesothelial proliferations — M. Cigognetti, S. Lonardi, et al. (2015)

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