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. 2019 Jul 1;12(7):2566-2571.
eCollection 2019.

Expression and clinical significance of H-caldesmon in gastrointestinal stromal tumor: is it a specific marker for myogenic differentiation?

Guohua Yu  1 , Jianfeng Xu  2 , Lei Jiang  1 , Li Cai  1 , Yaniv Zohar  3 , Shishou Wu  1 , Ping Yang  1 , Sagee Tal  3 , Jinchen Hu  4
Affiliations

Expression and clinical significance of H-caldesmon in gastrointestinal stromal tumor: is it a specific marker for myogenic differentiation?

Guohua Yu et al. Int J Clin Exp Pathol. .

Abstract

Objects: To investigate the expression and clinical significance of H-caldesmon which is considered a myogenic marker in GIST.

Methods: The clinical information of 105 patients diagnosed with GIST was obtained from Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital and Rambam Health Care Campus. Morphology, the results of immunohistochemical staining and available molecular detection were reviewed. The expression of H-caldesmon was detected for each specimen by immunohistochemical staining. Comparative analysis was carried out between H-caldesmon expression and clinicopathologic parameters.

Results: H-caldesmon was expressed in all patients with GIST including tumors outside the gastrointestinal tract and with CD117-negative expression. Although the pattern of expression was different, the positive rate in our study group was 100%. There was no statistically difference between H-caldesmon expression and parameters such as gender, age, location, morphology, risk, immunologic markers, and molecular mutation.

Conclusions: H-caldesmon is expressed positively in GIST and might not be a specific marker for smooth muscle and associated tumors. GIST outside the gastrointestinal tract or with CD117-negative expression should not be misdiagnosed assmooth muscle tumor because of the positive expression of H-caldesmon in the differential diagnosis. Comprehensive analysis combined with other immunological markers and molecular detection is needed.

Keywords: GIST; H-caldesmon; differential diagnosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Morphology of GIST. Spindle cell type (A) (H&E, 20 ×); Epithelial cell type (B) (H&E, 20 ×). The tumor showed signet ring cells (C) (H&E, 10 ×).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Genetic sequencing showed the mutations in PDGFRa gene. One case mutation site located in 12 exon (A) and another in 18 exon (B).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Immunohistochemical staining of H-caldesmon. Positive signal was located in the cytoplasm (A) (H&E, 10 ×) or membrane (B) (H&E, 10 ×) of the tumor cells. Positive expression patterns varied from mottled (C) (H&E, 4 ×) to diffuse and strong.
Figure 4
Figure 4
H-caldesmon is expressed positively in a case outside the gastrointestinal tract. The tumor cells were epithelioid and vacuoles were seen in the cytoplasm (A) (H&E, 10 ×). CD117 (B) (Envision, 10 ×), CD34 (C) (Envision, 10 × magnification), Dog-1 (D) (Envision, 10 × magnification) and H-caldesmon (E) (Envision, 10 × magnification) were expressed positively while Desmin (F) (Envision, 10 ×) was negative.
Figure 5
Figure 5
H-caldesmon was expressed positively in the case with CD117-negative expression. The tumor cells were spindled (A) (H&E staining, 10 × magnification) and CD117 (B) (Envision, 20 × magnification), CD34 (C) (Envision, 20 × magnification) had negative expression, while H-caldesmon (D) (Envision, 20 × magnification) was expressed positively. The 18 exon in PDGFR-a gene was mutated (E).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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