Background & objective: The majority of research found that the positive rate of MOC-31 is higher in lung carcinoma than that in pleural mesothelioma. So MOC-31 is regarded as an important factor in differentiating diagnosis of lung carcinoma from pleural mesothelioma. But there are also few contrary reports. CD56 (neural cell adhesion molecule) is a sensitive factor in diagnosis of small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC), but the reports about its diagnostic sensitivity in non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) are different. This study was conducted to investigate the significance of MOC-31 and CD56 in diagnosis of human lung carcinoma.
Method: Immunohistochemical method (S-P) was used to detect MOC-31 and CD56 expression in 92 cases of lung carcinoma.
Result: The positive rate of MOC-31 in lung carcinoma was 98.9% (91/92), among which, 98.6% (72/73) in NSCLC, 100% (19/19) in SCLC; the positive expression rate of CD56 in lung carcinoma was 30.4% (28/92), among which, 12.3% (9/73) in NSCLC, 100% (19/19) in SCLC. MOC-31 and CD56 expressions in adjacent lung tissue and normal lung tissue were negative.
Conclusion: MOC-31 is an antibody which is highly sensitive and peculiar to lung carcinoma, whereas CD56 only showed sensitive to SCLC. Therefore, combined determination of MOC-31 and CD56 is more useful than that of single item in diagnosing SCLC.