Background:
Dna fragmentation and cell proliferation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc) have not been well described on fine-needle aspiration biopsies (fnabs). to investigate the contribution of apoptosis, a major mechanism of cell death, to the growth of hcc, the authors analyzed both apoptosis and cell proliferation in patients with hcc.
Methods:
The authors studied 50 tumors from 50 patients with hcc: ten tumors were well-differentiated hcc, 24 tumors were moderately differentiated hcc, and 16 tumors were poorly differentiated hcc. the detection of dna fragments in situ using the terminal deoxyribonucleotidyl transferase (tdt)-mediated dutp-digoxigenin nick-end labeling (tunel) assay was applied to investigate active cell death (apoptosis), and the mib-1 antigen was used to investigate cell proliferation.
Results:
The tunel indices were 0.34 +/- 0.08, 082 +/- 0.30, and 2.0 +/- 0.95 in well-differentiated hcc, moderately differentiated hcc, and poorly differentiated hcc, respectively. the mib-1 antigen labeling indices were 6.7 +/- 0.10, 13.2 +/- 3.4; and 26.9 +/- 6.5, respectively, in the same order of tumor differentiation. the differences in both tunel and mib-1 labeling indices were significant between well differentiated hcc, moderately differentiated hcc, and poorly differentiated hcc, and a positive correlation was found between the tunel indices and the mib-1 indices.
Conclusions:
Apoptosis (cell death) and cell proliferation increase as the grade of differentiation decreases in hcc, suggesting a rapid turnover of tumor cells in tumors with lower grades of differentiation, and apoptosis may play an important role in the growth of tumors in patients with hcc.