MIB 1 immunostaining in cervical carcinoma of young patients

In the present study, we assessed whether biologic characteristics of tumors in young patients differ from those observed in older patients with the same clinical and histologic characteristics, but ranging in age from 50 to 70 years. The hypothesis to be verified was whether cervical carcinoma in young patients presented an increased proliferative activity which might explain more aggressive behavior.

Locally advanced cervical carcinoma tumor samples were obtained from our series of patients, maximum age 40 years, and immunohistochemically evaluated by monoclonal MIB 1 antibody (Immunotech, Marseille Cedex, France) on microwave-oven-processed Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue. Positive staining was expressed as a percentage of positive cells per 10(3) counted neoplastic cells for each case. For each young patient, a control was selected among patients aged >/=50 years (range 50-70) matched for stage, tumor size, histologic type and grading, and lymphvascular invasion.

Fourteen of 73 patients (19.2%) with stage I and IIa cervical carcinoma who underwent primary radical surgery at our Institute between 1986 and 1994 were aged

Although any conclusions from this study need to be tempered because of the small number of patients involved, locally advanced cervical carcinomas present in young patients showed a more aggressive biologic behavior, expressed by a higher cell proliferation index.