title: Tissue microarray technique in evaluation of proliferative activity in invasive ductal breast cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Investigation of the relationship between expression of Ki-67 antigen and minichromosome maintenance 2 (MCM-2) protein by using an immunohistochemical study on whole sections (WS) and sections of invasive ductal breast cancer (IDC) obtained in the tissue microarray (TMA) technique.
  
  
  METHODS
  Material consisted of 51 archival paraffin blocks of IDC. Tissue microarrays were composed of 0.6 mm core punches. Reactions were performed using specific antibodies (anti-Ki-67 and anti-MCM-2). Intensity of the marker expression was evaluated using computer-assisted image analysis. For statistical purposes, three different tests were used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Spearman rank correlation revealed a strong positive correlation between expression of tested markers: Ki-67 (TMA) vs. Ki-67 (WS) (r=0.91, p<0.05) and MCM-2 (TMA) vs. MCM-2 (WS) (r=0.87, p<0.05). Mann Whitney U-test showed no significant differences between the two markers in both analysed techniques. Moreover, the Bland-Altman plot demonstrated a low level of bias between the analysed methods.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study shows that TMA could have a great potential in evaluation of proliferative activity in IDC and that MCM-2 protein might be a specific and sensitive marker of cell proliferation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical University, Chalubinskiego 6a, 50-368 Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kobierzycki
authors.forename: Bartosz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pula
authors.forename: Andrzej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wojnar
authors.forename: Marzena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Podhorska-Okolow
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dziegiel
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D018270:Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast / Q000473:pathology*; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D016612:Paraffin Embedding; D046888:Tissue Array Analysis / Q000379:methods*