Mahvish Hussain, Samina Zaman, Muneeza Khalid, Zunaira Rathore, Ayesha Naseem, Abeera Rasool.
Significance of Immunohistochemistry in Diagnosis of Wilms Tumor and Neuroblastoma in Core Needle Biopsies of Pediatric Population.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;13(2):346-9.

Background: Neuroblastoma (NBL) is the commonest extra-cranial neoplasm in the pediatric population . Clinically it can present as an abdominal mass, but is usually metastatic at the time of diagnosis so the clinical features can vary. Nephroblastoma, also more commonly known as Wilms tumor (WT), presents as abdominal mass. The early diagnosis and treatment of these tumors is necessary to have a better prognosis. Aim: To determine the frequency of positivity of Wilms tumor 1 gene ( WT1 ) and neuron specific enolase ( NSE ) in WT and NBL in order to differentiate between them in the core needle biopsies of paediatric population. Methods: It was a Cross sectional study and was completed at Histopathology Section, Pathology Department , Children’s Hospital and Institute of Child Health, Lahore. Using non-probability consecutive technique, 100 biopsy specimens fulfilling the inclusion criteria were taken. The requisition forms sent from the Oncology, Surgery, Urology and Nephrology departments were collected along with other relevant investigations. The clinical parameters like age, gender and provisional diagnosis made by the clinicians were recorded. Results: The mean age of children was 3.15 +/- 2.14 years with 56% male and 44% female patients. After the confirmation of the diagnosis by immunomarkers, 55% was diagnosed as WT, whereas 45% of the population was labelled as NBL. Conclusion: In this study 55% children were diagnosed as WT on WT1 and rests of 45% children were diagnosed as NBL on NSE. So in future we can rely on these immunohistochemical markers on core biopsies for undifferentiated abdominal tumors for the definitive diagnosis and early treatment for better prognosis and higher survival rate of these patients.

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