Application of monoclonal antibodies to intermediate filament proteins in surgical pathology of head and neck tumours. An overview.

Intermediate filament proteins are distributed in a tissue specific manner throughout human tissues. Using monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies to cytokeratins, vimentin, desmin, neurofilament proteins or the glial fibrillary acidic protein, epithelial, mesenchymal, myogenic, nervous and glial tissues, respectively, can be distinguished by immunohistochemical techniques. Since tumour cells generally retain the intermediate filament proteins typical for their cells of origin, such antibodies can also be used to discriminate between different types of neoplasma, i.e. carcinoma, lymphoma, myosarcoma, etc. Furthermore, monoclonal antibodies to individual cytokeratin proteins can be used to distinguish between several types of epithelial tissues and different types of carcinomas. The application of such antibodies in the histopathology of head and neck tumours can be of great help in the characterization of tumours that cannot be identified on the basis of routine histological techniques.