Nucleolar organizer regions in benign and malignant glandular lesions of the cervix

The argyrophil technique for nucleolar organizer regions was applied to cases of normal cervix (n = 6), microglandular hyperplasia (n = 6), adenocarcinoma in situ (n = 15), and invasive adenocarcinoma of the cervix (n = 19). A rigorous staining technique was employed which facilitated the enumeration of individual AgNORs even when they were aggregated as tight clusters within the nucleolus (AgNUs). Two methods of counting AgNORs were used: a simple enumeration of dispersed AgNORs and AgNUs, and the more time-consuming counting of all individual AgNORs, including those within AgNUs. With both techniques, there was no significant difference in counts between in situ and invasive adenocarcinoma, but cases of microglandular hyperplasia showed significantly fewer AgNORs than either of these. This suggests that AgNORs may be useful in differentiating difficult cases of microglandular hyperplasia from adenocarcinoma and that the simplified counting technique is adequate for this purpose. AgNOR counts are of no use in discriminating between invasive and in situ adenocarcinoma.