Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0017638 (glioma)
 30,880 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Smear preparations from 15 malignant gliomas, 2 metastatic carcinomas and from normal brain were examined by scanning electron microscopy. Tissue culture preparations from malignant gliomas were also studied. In the better differentiated areas of gliomas, the cells in smears were stellate with multiple long interweaving processes 0.25--1.3 micrometer in diameter which could be distinguished from myelinated nerve fibers (1.3--5 micrometer) and from fibrin (0.08--0.3 micrometer) by their thickness and arrangement in the tissue. The relationship of glial processes to blood vessels within the tumour was well demonstrated in smears. Metastatic carcinoma cells lacked the processes seen in glioma cell smears and did not show the same relationship to blood vessels. The more anaplastic glioma cells had fewer processes and ovoid cell bodies covered with surface ruffles and microvilli similar to the cell membrane projections in the nuclear regions of glioma cells in culture. The relationship of the surface morphology of glioma cells in smears to the known invasive nature of these tumours is discussed.
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PMID:Scanning electron microscopy of malignant gliomas. A comparative study of glioma cells in smear preparations and in tissue culture. 64 59

Metastatic carcinoma, which is a common malignant tumor seen in the central nervous system is often difficult to distinguish from glioblastoma multiforme. In general, neoplastic cells maintain fidelity in the expression of parent cell intermediate filament and immunohistochemistry remains the mainstay in diagnosis. A panel consisting of GFAP (usually positive for astrocytic tumors) and cytokeratin (usually positive for metastatic carcinomas) is most commonly used for this purpose. However, co-expression of two or more classes of intermediate filament proteins by neoplasms is a widespread phenomenon and there are reports of glial neoplasms expressing keratin markers. Our aims and objectives were to analyse the expression of both cytokeratin and GFAP in different glial tumors and metastatic carcinomas. Cases were collected for a period of two years. All the cases were diagnosed as primary or metastatic intracranial tumors. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded thin sections were taken on egg-albumin coated slides and immunostaining with GFAP and polyclonal cytokeratin was done. Forty-five tumors were analysed, including 35 glial neoplasms and 10 metastatic carcinomas of which 7 of the 32 astrocytic neoplasms (22%) showed focal immunoreactivity with pancytokeratin. All of the glial tumors but none of the metastatic carcinomas were positive with GFAP. So our conclusion was that co-expression of GFAP and CK is a fairly common phenomenon, especially in case of undifferentiated and high grade gliomas and this must be kept in mind while differentiating these cases from metastatic carcinoma, as CK positivity does not rule out the diagnosis of a glial neoplasm. Further studies with an expanded panel of CK is most useful for this.
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PMID:Expression of cytokeratins in gliomas. 1788 12