The utility of p16 immunostaining in fine needle aspiration in p16-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma Journal Article


Authors: Xu, B.; Ghossein, R.; Lane, J.; Lin, O.; Katabi, N.
Article Title: The utility of p16 immunostaining in fine needle aspiration in p16-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
Abstract: Many patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related head and neck squamous cell carcinoma present initially with cervical nodal metastasis. Fine needle aspiration (FNA) of the nodal disease might be the only diagnostic material available for p16 immunohistochemistry (IHC) and HPV testing. The current study aims to evaluate p16 IHC in FNA and establish guidelines for its interpretation. The percentage and intensity of p16 IHC staining were examined in 60 matched FNA and surgical cases. Cytomorphologic features were included in the analysis. p16 IHC staining was correlated with the results seen in the surgical specimens and with HPV in situ hybridization (ISH). Analysis of different thresholds demonstrated that the threshold of 10% p16 tumor cell positivity had the best overall concordance rate with surgical p16 IHC (κ = 0.650) and with FNA HPV-ISH (κ = 0.714). Applying the recommended p16 positivity threshold for surgical specimens (70%) on FNA materials resulted in low sensitivity (39%) and low negative predictive value (26%). In comparison with p16 IHC in surgical specimens, 6/46 FNA cases (13%) were falsely negative for p16. All 6 cases were associated with necrotic background, two (33%) lacked large tumor clusters, and one (17%) had low cellularity. The recommended threshold for p16 IHC on surgical specimens should not be used in cytology materials. The cutoff value for p16 immunostain in FNA specimens showing best results in our series is 10%. When p16 IHC is negative in FNA specimens, a repeat stain on a surgical specimen is recommended to avoid a false-negative diagnosis. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; fine needle aspiration; chromogenic in situ hybridization (cish); human papilloma-virus (hpv); p16 immunohistochemistry
Journal Title: Human Pathology
Volume: 54
ISSN: 0046-8177
Publisher: Elsevier Inc.  
Date Published: 2016-08-01
Start Page: 193
End Page: 200
Language: English
DOI: 10.1016/j.humpath.2016.04.002
PROVIDER: scopus
PUBMED: 27105759
DOI/URL:
Notes: Article -- Export Date: 1 July 2016 -- Source: Scopus
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MSK Authors
  1. Ronald A Ghossein
    484 Ghossein
  2. Oscar Lin
    307 Lin
  3. Nora Katabi
    305 Katabi
  4. Bin   Xu
    228 Xu
  5. Jason Latif Lane
    4 Lane