Role of immunoperoxidase staining in serous effusions

Immunoreactivity with monoclonal antibodies against epithelial membrane antigen, vimentin, keratin-squamous epithelium, keratin-nonsquamous epithelium and with polyclonal antibodies against keratin, involucrin, S-100 protein, desmin and varies; is directly proportional to-1 antitrypsin was done in 30 pleural and peritoneal effusion fluids; 15 each of benign and malignant origin using the avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex (ABC) technique to differentiate between the mesothelial cells and the adenocarcinoma cells. In the present study we have demonstrated that desmin and S-100 protein are distributed in the cancer cells and the mesothelial cells of the effusion fluids. Neither EMA nor keratin has the specific reactive pattern which could lead to the differentiation of the mesothelial cells from the cancer cells, but vimentin and keratin could be used for the diagnosis of the mesothelial cells since they had maximum reactivities compared to the cancer cells.