The effects of minimally invasive
therapies such as
radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and
laser induced thermal
therapy on
breast carcinoma lesions usually is assessed by
NADH diaphorase enzyme histochemistry for cell viability.
NADH staining requires frozen material, however, with its associated poor morphology. We aimed to validate
cytokeratin 8 (CK 8) immunohistochemistry as an alternative that works on
paraffin sections. RFA was performed ex vivo on 20 breast resections after surgery and in vivo in eight patients who underwent
general anesthesia followed by immediate resection.
After treatment, specimens were lamellated and the
tumors were divided into two equal parts. One part was fixed in neutral buffered
formaldehyde for routine histopathological evaluation using
hematoxylin and
eosin (H & E) staining and CK 8 immunostaining. The other section was snap frozen and stored at -80° C for staining with
NADH diaphorase. Both
NADH diaphorase and CK 8 immunostaining demonstrated a clear and comparable demarcation between viable and nonviable tissues. The morphology of the CK 8 immunostained slides was much better, and fatty tissues could be judged readily by contrast to the
NADH stained frozen sections, which had poor morphology and whose fatty parts were difficult to interpret. CK 8 immunohistochemistry seems to be well suited for assessing cell viability in breast tissue and for assessing the effects of RFA for
breast cancer treatment. Because it can be applied to
paraffin fixed material, it provides much better morphology than
NADH staining and also can be applied to fatty tissues that usually are difficult to work up for frozen sections. Therefore, CK 8 immunohistochemistry may be preferred over
NADH diaphorase staining for daily pathology practice for assessing the viability of
breast carcinoma cells after RFA treatment.