Nuclear maspin detection in renal cell tumours: possible diagnostic role and correlation with p53 status.

Aims: To investigate the presence of maspin in renal tumours in an attempt to improve our understanding of the underlying mechanism of renal carcinogenesis and for diagnostic purposes.

Methods And Results: We examined 122 renal neoplasms of varying histological types and immunohistochemically investigated maspin and p53 expression. All clear cell carcinomas (CC) were negative for maspin, whereas oncocytomas (OC), papillary renal cell carcinomas (PC), chromophobe carcinomas (CPC) and, at least focally, collecting duct carcinomas (CDC) stained positively. We found that p53 positivity had a statistically significant correlation with metastasis (P=0.009) in CC and maspin showed a significant inverse correlation with the presence of metastasis in PC and CDC (P=0.02).

Conclusions: The detection of maspin may be useful for differential diagnostic purposes and suggests a different underlying mechanism in the development of the various histological types of renal carcinomas.