Saeed Akhtar Khan, Naseer Ahmed Chaudrhy, Abdul Wadood Khalid, Gul Naz Akhtar, Shazia N Ibnerasa.
Patterns of Argyrophilic nucleolar organiser regions in pleural and peritoneal effusions
J Coll Physicians Surg Pak Jun 2006;16(6):412-5.
Postgraduate Medical Institute, Lahore

Objective: To evaluate AgNOR size and dispersion as alternate methods to AgNOR counts in order to differentiate malignant from non-malignant effusions. Design: Comparative study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Pathology, Postgraduate Medical Institute, Lahore, from January 2003 to June 2004. Materials and Methods: A total of 240 samples of pleural and peritoneal effusions were centrifuged, deposits smeared on slides and stained with H & E and AgNOR stain. The diagnosis of malignancy or otherwise was made on H and E staining. AgNOR counts, variation in size and dispersion of AgNOR dots in smears were graded and compared in malignant and non-malignant effusions. Results: Mean AgNOR counts of 11.47 ± 3.60 and 11.04 ± 3.89 in malignant pleural and peritoneal effusions, respectively, were significantly (p<0.0001) greater as compared with counts of 3.36 ± 0.69 and 3.35 ± 0.66 in non-malignant effusions. AgNOR size and dispersion were of higher grade in significantly greater proportion of malignant as compared with non-malignant effusions (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Typing of AgNOR size and dispersion was found to be an easy and reproducible alternative to traditional AgNOR counts for differentiating malignant from non-malignant effusions. These parameters should be correlated with already established but expensive techniques of AgNOR area and size imaging by electron microscopy and flow cytometry, as an economical alternative.

Category: Pathology
Keywords: Nucleolus Organiser Region. Pleural Effusion. Peritoneal Effusion. Ascites.

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