Effectiveness of immunohistochemical techniques in the detection of lymph node micrometastases of cervical squamous cell carcinoma

Out of a total of 1050 lymph nodes from patients with clinical squamous carcinoma, 58 lymph node metastases related to 18 patients were detected with H&E staining, while 61 lymph node metastases related to 19 patients were observed by immunohistochemical methods. However, by re-staining the original H&E sections with an anti-keratin antibody, the same 58 lymph node metastases were seen. Therefore, the three metastases emerged only in deeper sections which had been used for the immunohistochemical examination. It is suggested that the detection of micrometastases in lymph nodes may be improved by examining several sections at different levels rather than by immunohistochemical methods, even though these facilitate the observation of small groups of neoplastic cells.