This may, in part, be due to the natural heterogeneity of tumour tissue, indeed localisation by immunohistochemistry demonstrated heterogeneous staining.
As shown in Fig. 7A, IPF lung sections demonstrated heterogeneous staining.
Where sections contained heterogeneous staining an overall consensus was achieved based on the relative proportions of the different scores.
Rather heterogeneous staining patterns were observed within individual tumours, e.g. more pronounced infiltrations around necrotic areas.
Heterogeneous staining patterns were also present within metastases, and lymph node metastases from the primary tumour in some cases differed completely from each other.
The entire tumor cross-section showed heterogeneous staining; however, the staining tended to be strong at the invasive tumor front.
All analysed DU145-PSMA sections showed strong, heterogeneous staining for PSMA.
In each age group, several follicles with early or advanced signs of atresia exhibited a heterogeneous staining pattern, which subsequently disappeared in late atretic follicles.
Samples with regions of heterogeneous staining intensities were scored and the percentage of staining intensity for each area was recorded.
The 52 analysed tumour specimens revealed a heterogeneous staining pattern for IL-6 and TGF-β1 with variably intense cytoplasmatic and/or nuclear staining of the tumour cells.
This was assessed using conventional slides from both primary tumors and metastases and applying reference HER2 screening algorithm for breast tumors, to discriminate equivocal and heterogeneous staining.
