THE ROLE OF PROLIFERATING CELL NUCLEAR ANTIGEN LABELING INDEX IN THE DETERMINATION OF PROLIFERATIVE POTENTIAL IN THE GLIAL TUMORS

Proliferating cell nuclear antigen labeling indices (PCNA LI) is studied in 44 glioma cases and the relationship of PCNA LI with histological tumor type, tumor grade and survival is assessed. The differences between the PCNA LI values in different tumor types is found statistically significant (f=8.6250, P=0.0000). A significant inverse relationship between the tumor differentiation and PCNA LI values is also found (f=27.63, P=0.0000), i.e., as the differentiation decreases, PCNA LI values increases. Survival time of the patients who had <2% PCNA LI was found significantly longer than the other patients who had 2% <= PCNA LI <= 5% and PCNA LI <= 10%. The differences between the PCNA LI values of all these three categories is found significant (P=0.0127). However, in spite of these significant relationship, overlapping of PCNA LI values in different tumor grades and observing no significance differences between the PCNA LI values of either primary and recurrent tumors or recurrent and nonrecurrent tumors lead us to conclude that PCNA LI should not be accepted as a reliable criterium in predicting the prognosis of individual cases.