AgNORs in endometrial lesions

Silver nucleolar organizer region (AgNOR) staining was employed in one hundred specimens of endometrium. These included fifteen normal controls (Proliferative + Secretory endometrium) and eighty five lesions. Endometrial lesions comprised of endometritis (15), endometrial hyperplasia (25) and endometrial carcinoma (45). Three micron thick sections of paraffin embedded tissue were subjected to AgNOR staining as described by Crocker and Smith with a little modification of 0.01% safranin counterstain--The mean AgNOR scores were found to increase steadily from normal to endometritis to endometrial hyperplasia and carcinoma--The observations revealed statistically significant differences in values between atypical hyperplasia and carcinoma also. AgNOR staining and scoring is simple, inexpensive and a useful adjunct to routine histopathology to evaluate endometrial lesions especially to differentiate borderline lesions. Though scores cannot be standardized and fixed for a particular lesion as there are intralaboratory variations.