Summary
¶Background. Cell apoptosis in solid tumours has been related to immunological attack by NK-cells. The purpose of the present study is to verify in the tissue of brain metastases a possible relationship among the degree of NK-cell infiltration and the number of apoptotic tumour cells.
Methods. Twenty brain metastases whose tumour cells expressed CD95 (Fas/APO1) have been studied. NK-cells were identified by using the monoclonal antibody to CD57, and apoptotic tumour cells by means of the immunostain with the anti-ssDNA monoclonal antibody F7-26. The Spearman rank correlation test was used to study the relationship between the degree of CD57-NK-cell infiltration and the apoptosis labelling-index.
Findings. Positivity to F7-26 was present in all tumour samples, but the number of immunostained cells showed a wide variability, with a mean apoptosis labelling-index of 11.48%. All the studied tumours showed CD57 immunostained cells, with a number that ranged between 4 and 20 per microscopical field at 200× (mean±standard deviation: 8.4±3.7). Statistical studies showed that there was no correlation between the number of CD57 immunostained NK-cells and the apoptosis labelling-index (p>0.05).
Interpretation. These findings suggest that in brain metastases, apoptosis related to immune r esponse is mainly mediated by activated tumour-infiltrating mononuclear cells other than CD57+ NK-cells.
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Published online August 8, 2003
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Vaquero, J., Zurita, M., Aguayo, C. et al. Apoptosis is not correlated with the presence of CD57+ NK-cells in brain metastases. Acta Neurochir 145, 773–776 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-003-0087-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-003-0087-1