S-100 positive sustentacular cells with a dendritic morphology may be found in neuroendocrine tumours of the lung, in numbers proportional to the degree of differentiation of the tumour. They have also been demonstrated in appendiceal and other gastrointestinal carcinoids. S-100 is a more sensitive marker than are NGF-R or GFAP. Sustentacular cells can be distinguished from Langerhans' cells and macrophages by their negativity for CD1a and CD 68. It has been proposed that the term "paraganglioid" be applied to typical carcinoids which are rich in sustentacular cells but the prognostic significance of the presence of large numbers of sustentacular cells is not yet know.
|
typical carcinoid |
25/30 (constituting 5% of the cells in 5 cases and 10% in one case) |
|
atypical carcinoid |
20/25 |
|
large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma |
6/10 |
|
small cell carcinoma |
6/15 |
References
This page last revised 4.9.2001.