[Clinicopathological study on malignant glioma--with special reference to GFAP]

In surgical specimens of 91 cases of malignant glial tumor, the correlation between the clinical malignancy of the tumors and the presence of GFA protein in the surgical specimen was examined. In anaplastic astrocytomas, 20 of 27 cases revealed positive staining of GFAP. In the cases of glioblastoma multiforme 27 of 35 cases showed GFAP positive staining. On the other hand, in medulloblastomas, all 29 cases were negative. In anaplastic astrocytomas and glioblastoma multiforms, the difference between the survival curves of GFAP positive groups and negative groups were examined. Between two groups, there was no statistical differences. In this study, the presence of GFAP was not proportional to the degree of tumor differentiation, and the GFAP staining of the tumor tissue was not a valuable examination showing the prognosis of the patient.