Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors which occur mainly in patients with chronic liver disease. Early detection of HCC is critically important for treatment of the patients. However, most early HCC cases are asymptomatic clinically with the lack of typical radiological findings. Also histological diagnosis is often very difficult with the lack of agreement even among expert pathologists.
Methods: We studied the expression of Glypican-3 in 138 liver biopsy samples; 86 HCC, 10 hepatocellular adenomas, 12 focal nodular hyperplasias, 25 samples with liver cirrhosis without tumor, and 5 liver metastases of neuroendocrine carcinomas.
Results: HCC showed positive staining in 80 nodules (93%; all of the 11 needle biopsy samples, 12 out of 15 liver resection specimens, 57 out of 60 nodules in explanted livers). Glypican-3 expression was independent of the differentiation and size of the HCC. Six cases (6.9%), 3 HCC in liver resection specimens and 3 in the explanted liver were negative for Glypican-3. However, all cases with benign nodular lesions and cirrhosis without tumors were negative for Glypican-3.
Conclusions: Immunohistochemical detection of Glypican-3 significantly improves the complicated routine histological diagnosis of HCC even in early lesions in needle biopsy samples.