Histopathological Evaluation of Apoptosis in Cancer
Abstract
Top Background Introduction Molecular Mechanisms of... Cancer Genes and Apoptosis Morphology of Apoptosis Apoptosis and Necrosis Morphological Detection of... Apoptotic Index Occurrence of Apoptosis in... Why Is There Increased... Concluding Remarks References The first observations of programmed cell death were made more than a century ago, and the term "apoptosis" was coined for this widely occurring phenomenon as early as 2 decades ago 1,2 . However, it is only during the past few years that serious mechanistic studies on it have been launched, leading to a revelation of its basic molecular intricacies. Along with this, investigators also working with clinical tumor material have obtained new analytical tools to study the role of apoptosis in cancer. Indeed, during the past years, there have been numerous papers in which the occurrence and extent of apoptosis and its association with the growth and progression of cancer have been studied in various types of neoplasms. This is not surprising, because, in essence, tumor growth is the net result of cell proliferation and cell loss. Rather, one may wonder why it is that, after so many years of meticulous use of not only mitotic count but also of more sophisticated proliferation markers as