Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 7, 2026
Modeling the Early Steps of Ovarian Cancer Dissemination in an Organotypic Culture of the Human Peritoneal Cavity
Published on: December 31, 2015
HNF-1β in ovarian carcinomas with serous and clear cell change
Deborah DeLair1, Guangming Han, Julie A Irving
1Department of Pathology (D.D., R.A.S.), Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (G.H.), Toronto, ON Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (J.A.I., S.L., C.B.G.), University of British Columbia and Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, BC Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology (C.A.E.), Royal Alexandra Hospital, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada Department of Pathology (T.A.L.), Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California.
Abstract:
Many ovarian tumors, including high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), show clear cell change. Accurate diagnosis is important, however, as ovarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC) is known to be less responsive to traditional types of ovarian cancer chemotherapies. In a previous study, the clinical, morphologic, and immunohistochemical features of 32 ovarian carcinomas, which had been previously diagnosed as pure OCCC (n=11), pure HGSC (n=11), and mixed serous and clear cell (MSC) (n=10), were analyzed. The immunoreactivities of WT1, ER, and p53, as well as the mitotic indices and stages of presentation of the MSC, were similar to those of HGSC. It was consequently concluded that MSC represented HGSC with clear cell change. Hepatocyte nuclear factor-1β (HNF-1β) is a relatively new immunohistochemical marker that has been shown to be rather sensitive and specific for OCCC. We thus sought to evaluate this marker in this specific group of tumors. One block each of pure HGSC and pure OCCC were stained with HNF-1β. In the cases of MSC, 2 blocks were stained when the serous and clear cell components were not present on the same slide. None (0/11) of the pure HGSC showed immunoreactivity for HNF-1β, whereas all (11/11) of the pure OCCC were positive. In the cases of MSC, both the serous and clear cell components were negative for HNF-1β. HNF-1β seems to be a sensitive and specific marker for OCCC and is not expressed in HGSC with clear cell change. The pattern of immunoreactivity of HNF-1β in tumors with both serous and clear cell change supports the conclusion that MSC are HGSC with clear cells.
