SPARC: a potential diagnostic marker of invasive meningiomas

SPARC, a secreted, extracellular matrix-associated protein implicated in the modulation of cell adhesion and migration, was evaluated as a marker for invasive meningiomas. Although the majority of meningiomas are clinically and morphologically benign, approximately 10% progress into atypical and malignant tumors, according to the standard criteria. However, a subset of meningiomas presents as histomorphologically benign tumors (WHO grade I), but they are clinically invasive. It has been suggested that these tumors should be classified as malignant, and that the patients may require adjuvant therapy and closer follow up. Unfortunately, a significant number of these tumors may not be recognized because the surgical specimen used to assess the grade of a tumor lacks the infiltrative interface with the brain, which is currently necessary to determine its invasive character. Therefore, a marker of heightened invasiveness would greatly facilitate the identification of this subset of patients. In this study, the immunohistochemical expression of SPARC in benign, noninvasive primary meningiomas was compared with its expression in invasive, aggressive, primary and recurrent meningiomas. SPARC was not expressed in the 9 benign, noninvasive tumors, but was highly expressed in the 20 invasive tumors, regardless of the grade. The findings suggest that SPARC is a potential diagnostic marker of invasive meningiomas and is capable of distinguishing the histomorphologically benign noninvasive from the histomorphologically benign but invasive meningiomas, in the absence of the infiltrative interface.