Immunohistochemistry in tumour diagnosis

Immunohistochemistry has become an everyday tool in diagnostic pathology to increase the accuracy in tumour typing. The most important recent developments include availability of antibodies to leukocyte CD-antigens to nearly comprehensive lymphoma typing in paraffin sections, use of certain leukocyte antigens in typing of solid tumours, e.g. neoplastic endothelial cells (CD31 and CD34) and neural and neuroendocrine cells (CD56, CD57). Also, antibodies selective to individual keratin polypeptides promise to be helpful in the subtyping of carcinomas. Antibodies to nuclear proliferation antigens have already proven helpful in the characterization of tumour cell proliferation. Technical optimization, using enzymatic and non-enzymatic antigen retrieval modalities, is also important.