Majallah-i Dānishgāh-i ̒Ulūm-i Pizishkī-i Bābul (Apr 2006)
Diagnostic value of Nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) in salivary gland tumors
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Nowadays, besides the ordinary staining, a variety of cell markers and immunohistochemistry methods are incorporated for distinction between neoplasms. But in the current situation, due to the high cost of most of these methods, cheaper and simpler way like silver nitrate staining should be sought for analyzing the nucleolar organizer dots. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the distinction capability of silver nitrate within the benign and malignant neoplasms of the salivary glands.METHODS: Silver nitrate staining was carried out for nucleolar organizer regions in 22 cases of the most common benign neoplasms of the salivary glands, namely pleomorphic adenoma, and 22 cases of common malignant neoplasms of salivary glands, consisting of 11 adenoid cystic carcinoma and 11 mucoepidermoid carcinoma cases. Twenty-two cases of normal salivary glands of the peripheral regions of the same samples were analyzed.FINDINGS: The mean dots occurrences for normal salivary glands, pleomorphic adenoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma and mucoepidermoid carcinoma were 1.67±0.2, 2.32±0.39, 3.92±1.11 and 3.25±0.78 (for malignancies was 3.58±1), respectively. There were significant differences among benign and malignant, malignant and normal, and benign and normal groups (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: This study purposed that the use of silver nitrate staining method is suitable for distinction of the benign and malignant neoplasms of salivary glands.
