Summary
Leu-M1 antigen is a monocyte/granulocyte-related marker known to be consistently expressed in the Reed-Sternberg cells of patients with Hodgkin's disease and to be present in tumour cells of a variety of non-haematopoietic neoplasms, most of them adenocarcinomas. The biological significance of this aberrant reaction has not yet been clarified. Recently, however, we have demonstrated that marked epithelial Leu-M1 immunoreactivity significantly correlated with an unfavourable clinical course in papillary carcinomas of the thyroid gland. The findings of the present study obtained from surgical speciments of 39 tumours suggest that Leu-M1 immunostaining also provides significant prognostic information in patients with medullary carcinoma (MC) of this organ. Irrespective of other morphological and clinical features, local recurrences occurred 2.9 times (P<0.005) and death resulting from tumour occurred 4.3 times (P<0.03) more frequently among MCs with marked Leu-M1 positivity (>15% tumour cells positively stained) in comparison to tumours with only slight or absent immunoreactivity. A significantly higher recurrence rate of intense Leu-M1-positive MCs was even evident when comparing only tumours of stage pT1-3N0M0 (P<0.005). Our findings infer that Leu-M1 immunostaining might be of clinical relevance to the selection of different aggressive adjuvant therapeutic procedures to be used in MCs with high or low malignant potential.
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Supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Schr 274/2-1) and the Hamburger Stiftung zur Förderung der Krebsbekämpfung
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Schröder, S., Schwarz, W., Rehpenning, W. et al. Leu-M1 immunoreactivity and prognosis in medullary carcinomas of the thyroid gland. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 114, 291–296 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00405836
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00405836