Glypican-3 expression in benign liver tissue with active hepatitis C: implications for the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma.
Glypican 3 is an oncofetal antigen that shows great promise as an adjunct to the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. To investigate whether glypican 3 might also appear in nonneoplastic liver cells, we performed immunostains on 60 biopsies of chronic hepatitis C, 30 with low-grade activity and 30 with high-grade activity. Glypican 3 immunoreactivity was detected in 25 (83.6%) of 30 in the high-grade but in none in the low-grade group. In 20% of the positive cases, glypican 3 produced strong cytoplasmic staining of more than 25% of hepatocytes and could potentially lead to a misdiagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. Pathologists should be aware of this phenomenon and exercise caution in interpreting biopsies or other specimens of suspected hepatocellular carcinoma when active necroinflammatory disease is present.
Abdul-Al
Hala M
HM
Division of Hepatic Pathology and the Veterans Administration Special Reference Laboratory for Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, DC 20306-6000, USA. md_pathology@yahoo.com
Makhlouf
Hala R
HR
Wang
Guanghua
G
Goodman
Zachary D
ZD
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism*; D001706:Biopsy; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D053673:Glypicans / Q000378:metabolism*; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000378:metabolism*; D022781:Hepatocytes / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D019394:Ki-67 Antigen / Q000378:metabolism; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*
D015415:Biomarkers; D053673:Glypicans; D019394:Ki-67 Antigen