Apoptosis is associated with atypical or malignant change in meningiomas. An in situ labelling and immunohistochemical study.
OBJECTIVE
Although necrosis is an important phenomenon with implications for grading and prognostication in meningiomas, the alternate form of cell death, apoptosis, has not been extensively studied. In this series, we aimed to determine whether apoptosis in meningiomas correlated with histological types and grading. We also looked for a relationship between expression of apoptosis-related genes bcl-2, p53, c-myc and apoptosis meningiomas.


RESULTS
Fifty-one meningiomas of diverse histological subtypes and grades were investigated with in situ end-labelling of DNA fragments as well as immunohistochemical analysis of three apoptosis-related genes: p53, bcl-2 and c-myc. Our results showed that the apoptosis index was significantly higher in high-grade meningiomas (0.12%, n = 12) in than the benign meningiomas (0.023%, n = 39) P = 0.001) but there was no difference among the different histological subtypes of the benign meningiomas (P = 0.125). There is no obvious relationship between p53, bcl-2 and c-myc staining and apoptosis index in this group of meningiomas.


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that apoptosis is an important phenomenon in meningiomas and that it is associated with atypical or malignant changes in meningiomas. Apoptosis in meningiomas has no clearcut relationship with expression of p53, bcl-2 and c-myc.
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H K
HK
Department of Anatomical & Cellular Pathology, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Chen
L
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D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017209:Apoptosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008297:Male; D008577:Meningeal Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D008579:Meningioma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D019253:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-2 / Q000378:metabolism; D016271:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc / Q000378:metabolism; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000378:metabolism
D019253:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-2; D016271:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53