Nucleolar organizer region staining patterns in paraffin-embedded tissue cells from human skin cancers.

Background: Increased number of nucleoli (nucleolar organizer regions, NORs) with abnormal shapes and sizes, including small dots, has been used as prognostic tools to evaluate tumor proliferation levels and troublesome borderline lesions. In this study, NOR patterns of skin cancers were performed in the search of a valuable prognostic method to complement other histological procedures.

Methods: Paraffin-embedded tumor tissue was obtained from basal and squamous cell carcinomas, cutaneous malignant melanoma, premalignant lesions, and Skmel-28 human melanoma cells.