Hepatocellular carcinoma and preneoplastic lesions of the liver: evaluation of argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs).

The authors applied a silver colloid technique to identify Argyrophilic Organiser Region (AgNOR) to 8 groups of hepatic lesions: alcoholic hepatitis with dysplasia (3 cases); chronic active hepatitis with dysplasia (4 cases); cirrhosis with dysplasia (5 cases); focal nodular hyperplasia (4 cases) and hepatocellular carcinomas (3 cases of grade I, 3 cases of grade II and 5 cases of grade III of Edmondson). Four cases of non-specific reactive hepatitis were used as control. This work suggests the simplicity and utility of simultaneous application of clumps per cell, AgNORs per clump and total AgNORs counts in the evaluation of neoplastic and preneoplastic lesions of the liver. The results show, in hepatocellular carcinomas, a relationship between the number of clumps, the AgNORs per clump, the total number of AgNORs and the grading of Edmondson. The nodular lesions that can be considered in the differential diagnosis with carcinoma are sufficiently well discriminated using the two parameters AgNORs per clump and total number of AgNORs.