The diagnostic value of immunohistochemistry and silver impregnation techniques for characterization of normal, reactive and tumoral astrocytes.

Astrocytes represent a heterogeneous population of specialized glial cells responsible not only for accomplishing various important functions in the healthy nervous tissue, but also for reacting to all types of the central nervous system diseases and trauma. GFAP immunostaining is considered to be the most accurate of the routine techniques used for identifying astrocytes; however, silver impregnation techniques, which are inexpensive and approachable, might be a reliable alternative. The present research has brought into question and tried to assess the sensitivity and specificity of these classical methods for identifying and differentiating normal and reactive from tumoral astrocytes.