MIB-1 proliferation index correlates with survival in pleural malignant mesothelioma.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to establish whether the cell proliferation index assessed by the monoclonal antibody MIB-1 would correlate with survival in pleural malignant mesothelioma.


RESULTS
We studied a series of seven long-term survivors with pleural malignant mesothelioma and a group of control cases with short-term survival. All cases showed MIB-1 positive cells, and labelling indices were expressed as percentage of cells with positive nuclear immunostaining by randomly counting 1000 tumour cells. A statistically significant difference was found between MIB-1 values in the long-term survival group and the control cases with short-term survival.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that the differences in biological behaviour of malignant mesothelioma in long-term and short-term survivors may be explained in part by differences in tumour growth fraction and that proliferation index could represent an important prognostic parameter for this tumour.
Comin
C E
CE
Istituto di Anatomia e Istologia Patologica, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy.
Anichini
C
C
Boddi
V
V
Novelli
L
L
Dini
S
S
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002452:Cell Count; D002455:Cell Division; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D019394:Ki-67 Antigen / Q000032:analysis*; D008297:Male; D008654:Mesothelioma / Q000737:chemistry / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D008875:Middle Aged; D008940:Mitotic Index; D010997:Pleural Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D015996:Survival Rate
D019394:Ki-67 Antigen