title: Value of CD15 immunostaining in diagnosing Hodgkin's disease: a review of published literature.
abstract: The role of antibodies of CD15 as diagnostic markers of Hodgkin's disease was assessed from a review of the literature. A total of 571 cases of Hodgkin's disease and 386 cases of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were included. The sensitivity of CD15 in detecting cases of Hodgkin's disease was 80% or 91% if cases of lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin's disease were excluded. The specificity of CD15 was only 80.6%, or in other words, 19.4% of cases of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were CD15 positive. In an ideal test both the sensitivity and specificity would be 100% and if the test performance were no better than chance then they would both be 50%. It is concluded that CD15 immunostaining cannot be regarded as a sensitive or specific marker of Hodgkin's disease. Application of this formal method of analysis to other immunohistological reagents and panels of antibodies is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Histopathology, St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: D'Ardenne
mesh_terms: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000276:immunology*; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D000943:Antigens, Differentiation / Q000276:immunology*; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000175:diagnosis
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D000943:Antigens, Differentiation