Value of H-TERT and CD10 in differentiating endometrial carcinoma from atypical endometrial hyperplasia: an immunohistochemical study

Context
The histopathological differentiation between atypical endometrial hyperplasia and well-differentiated conventional endometrial carcinoma is sometimes tricky, particularly in endometrial dilatation and curettage specimens, to the extent that a differentiating marker is sought.
Aim
This study was devoted to evaluate the immunohistochemical expression of CD10 and human telomerase reverse transcriptase (H-TERT) in atypical endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial carcinoma to determine their role in differentiating both lesions.
Patients and methods
Thirty paraffin blocks of endometrial biopsy distributed as 15 cases of atypical endometrial hyperplasia and 15 cases of conventional endometrial carcinoma were studied immunohistochemically using antibodies against CD10 and H-TERT. Data were represented as mean, SD, and percentage. The Fisher exact test was used to compare immunoexpression between atypical endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial carcinoma. The Mann–Whitney -test and the Kruskal–Wallis test were used to compare between the two marker expressions in both lesions. The one-way analysis of variance test was used to determine whether the difference was significant. A -value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.
Results
A statistically significant difference was observed between CD10 and H-TERT expression in both lesions, but only H-TERT significantly correlated with international federation of gynecology and obstetrics (FIGO) tumor grades in endometrial carcinoma cases. Although H-TERT labeling index upregulates with CD10 weaker expression, the relation between the two markers was not significant.
Conclusion
Both CD10 and H-TERT may be involved in the progression from the atypical endometrial hyperplasia to endometrial carcinoma as well as to differentiate between the two lesions. However, only H-TERT may be associated with the prognosis of endometrial carcinoma.