We prepared polyclonal anti-survivin serum to establish a survivin index for stained sections, using an immunohistochemical procedure, according to the method used for scoring MIB-1 index, and then stained 29 paraffin-embedded sections from surgical specimens of 29 patients who were classified into three grades of World Health Organization with the mean age of low grade astocytoma (grade II) being 34.7; anaplastic astrocytoma (grade III), 48.8; and glioblastoma multiform (grade IV), 58.4.
A total of 63 astrocytic tumors [27 glioblastomas (GBM), 19 anaplastic astrocytomas (AA), 17 low-grade astrocytomas (LGA)] and 5 normal brain tissues were immunohistochemically stained with antibodies to TP, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), p53, MIB-1, and factor-VIII-related antigen.
To elucidate the role of gemistocytes in astrocytoma progression, we assessed the fraction of neoplastic gemistocytes, bcl-2 expression, p53 mutations, p53 immunoreactivity (PAb 1801), and proliferative activity (MIB-1) in 40 low-grade astrocytomas (World Health Organization (WHO) Grade II) with histologically proven progression to anaplastic astrocytoma (WHC Grade III) or glioblastoma (WHO Grade IV).
In grade II and anaplastic astrocytomas, telomerase activity was an indicator of early histological progression and reduced survival of the patients, although there was no difference in MIB-1 staining indices between the tumors with and without telomerase activity at onset.
Most of them demonstrate that MIB-1 LI differentiates well between diffuse astrocytomas WHO grade II (AII) and anaplastic astrocytomas (AA) and between AII and glioblastomas (GM), but not between AA and GM.