REV.CHIM.(Bucharest)♦70♦No. 4 ♦2019 http://www.revistadechimie.ro 1323 CD10, CD34 and Ki67 Immunohistochemical Markers Expression in Endometriosis and Adenomyosis ROXANA-CLEOPATRA PENCIU 1 *, LILIANA STERIU 1 , SILVIA IZVORANU 1 , IULIA POSTOLACHE 1 , ANDREI-ADRIAN TICA 2 , DIANA MOCANU 1 , OANA-SORINA TICA 3 , VASILE SARBU 4 , MARIANA DEACU 5,6 , GABRIELA BALTATESCU 6,7 , IRINA TICA 8 , LUCIAN PETCU 9 , VLAD-IUSTIN TICA 1 1 Ovidius University, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Campus, 1 Universitatii Alley, 900470, Constanta, Romania 2 University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, 2 Petru Rares Str., 200349, Craiova, Romania 3 University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2 Petru Rares Str., 200349, Craiova, Romania 4 Ovidius University Constanta, Department of Surgery,, Campus, 1 Universitatii Alley, 900470, Constanta, Romania 5 Ovidius University Constanta, Department of Morphopathology, Campus, 1 Universitatii Alley, 900470, Constanta, Romania 6 Department of Clinical Pathology, St. Apostle Andrew Emergency County Hospital, 145 Tomis Blvd., 900591,Constanta, Romania, 7 Ovidius University of Constanta, Faculty of Medicine, Research Center -CEDMOG, 145 Tomis Blvd., 900591, 8 Ovidius University of Constanta, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Campus, 1 Universitatii Alley, 900470, Constanta, Romania 9 Ovidius University of Constanta, Department of Statistics, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Campus, 1 Universitatii Alley, 900470, Constanta, Romania Endometriosis is a benign disease represented by existence of endometrial tissue outside the uterine cavity. Considered in the past a type of endometriosis, adenomyosis is, presently, described as a possible different entity, comparative to endometriosis. That is the reason why we decided to study two groups of patients - one with endometriosis and one with adenomyosis - in order to determine if they are one and the same disease. We included all successive patients admitted and surgically treated in the Emergency Clinical Hospital Constanta between 2015-2017, and, after applying the selection criteria, we assessed 61 patients (group 1) diagnosed with endometriosis - ovarian, cervical, caesarian section scar - and 39 patients (group 2) with adenomyosis. We studied all patients in terms of age, parity, lesions’ size, admissions’ symptoms, chronic symptoms and immunohistochemical markers CD10, CD34, Ki67. We chose there three markers because of their possible relation to endometriosis and because we were unable to find data regarding the comparison of CD34 or Ki67 expression in endometriosis and adenomyosis and because we did not find articles that reported the expression of these three immunohistochemical markers, combined, for either endometriosis or adenomyosis. According to our study, it seems that endometriosis and adenomyosis are different clinically with regard of age and dysmenorrhea, but there was no statistical difference between the studied immunohistochemical biomarkers’ expression in samples of patients with endometriosis or adenomyosis. Keywords: endometriosis, adenomyosis, immunohistochemistry, age, dysmenorrhea Endometriosis is a benign disease represented by detection of endometrial tissue outside the uterine cavity [1]. It can be found anywhere in the peritoneal cavity: on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, on the peritoneum, the uterosacral ligaments, the Pouch of Douglas, the rectal- vaginal septum and also in caesarian-section scars, laparoscopy or laparotomy scars, on the bladder, bowels, colon, appendix, and rectum [1]. Adenomyosis, considered in the past a type of endometriosis, is represented by the presence of endometrial tissue in the uterine muscle wall. There are three different types of adenomyosis - focal adenomyosis, focal adenomyoma and diffuse adenomyosis. Some of the theories include tissue trauma or some vaginal injury, which determines inflammation and leads to increased macrophages and cytokines which migrate into the uterine myometrium. Another interesting theory would be extension of deep infiltrating endometriosis from outside into the uterine wall [2]. There is, still, a very important question: endometrioma and adenomyoma are the same entity or are they different? That is the reason why we decided to study two groups of patients - one with endometriosis (all types) and the other one with adenomyosis. We studied the two groups by comparing the immunohistochemistry (IHC) expression of CD10, CD34 and Ki67, together with the patients’ age and admission symptoms. The IHC marker CD10 is known to be expressed by hematopoietic neoplasms like acute lymphoblastic leukemia and follicular lymphomas, normal endometrial stromal cells and endometrial stromal sarcoma [3]. The IHC marker CD34 represents a transmembrane phosphoglycoprotein, which was first identified on hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells and expresses angiogenesis in tissues [3]. The IHC marker Ki67 is a cellular proliferation marker [3]. We decided to study these three markers considering their relation to endometriosis and to determine if they have the same expression for endometriosis and adenomyosis. Another important reason for this study was that we did not find articles which have studied all the three biomarkers together for endometriosis and adenomyosis. * email: roxanapenciu@yahoo.com, Phone: 0727427621