title: Diagnostic value of E-cadherin and fibronectin in differentiation between reactive mesothelial and adenocarcinoma cells in serous effusions.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  One of the problems in studying serous effusion cytological samples is differentiation of reactive mesothelial cells from metastatic adenocarcinoma cells.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, the immunohistochemical diagnostic value of E-cadherin and fibronectin markers for differentiation of these 2 groups of cells was studied. 50 cell block samples prepared from serous effusions were examined. Based on clinical and histological studies, 25 cases had primary carcinoma, and the other 25 were proved to be benign effusion cases. All the cases were studied for E-cadherin and fibronectin immunostaining using an envision technique. Statistical analyzes were performed employing Chi-square and exact Fisher tests, using SPSS software (version 16).
  
  
  RESULTS
  24 of the 25 benign cases were stained with fibronectin and 2 with E-cadherin, whereas from among the 25 metastatic cases, 2 reacted to fibronectin and 22 to E-cadherin. Considering the staining of the 2 markers under conditions that the cells were stained with fibronectin but not with E-cadherin, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) to identify reactive mesothelial cells were 100% and 92.5% while under conditions that had not been stained with fibronectin but with E-cadherin, PPV and NPV to detect adenocarcinoma cells were 95.2% and 82.1%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Employing this short panel can be helpful for better differentiation of adenocarcinoma and reactive mesothelial cells in serous fluids.
authors: Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
authors: Noushin Afshar
authors: NA
authors: Moghaddam
authors: Reza
authors: R
authors: Tahririan
authors: Mehdi
authors: M
authors: Eftekhari
authors: Dana
authors: D
authors: Tahririan
authors: Alireza
authors: A
authors: Rahmani
keywords: Adenocarcinoma; E-cadherin; fibronectin; immunohistochemistry; reactive mesothelial cell; serous effusion