Vladimír Bartoš1, Juraj Mikuláš2, Roman Mráz2
Aim: One of the molecular parameters, which reflects the biological behaviour of malignant neoplasms and also provides important prognostic information, is a proliferative activity of tumour cells. In submitted work, we focused on quantitative evaluation of proliferative activity in RCC and its potential relationship with other pathological variables of tumour. Material and methods: A study group consisted of 25 cases of primary RCC in various clinical stage of disease; they were obtained from 25 patients. Proliferative activity of tumour cells was immunohistochemically detected by the antibody against Ki-67 antigen and quantitatively defined as Ki-67 index. Results: In a group of RCCs assessed, Ki-67 index varied between 0-5 % (mean value 1.7 %). Three carcinomas did not contain any ‘Ki-67 positive’ tumour cells (Ki-67 index 0 %) and another five had Ki-67 index less than 1 %. We failed to recognise a tendency of increasing frequency of more unfavourable pathological findings with increasing Ki-67 index. Advanced cancers with regional lymph nodes metastases did not have Ki-67 index higher than 1 %. Conclusion: In concordance with the literature data we found that carcinoma of kidney exhibited a low proliferative activity of tumour cells. Moreover, an evidence of Ki-67 antigen expression can be completely missing in some cases. For this reason, a histological evaluation of Ki-67 index has a limited benefit in distinguishing of certain benign epithelial renal tumours from RCC and maybe it is also the cause of the controversial views about prognostic impact of proliferative activity in this oncological disorder.