An immunohistochemical study of the incidence and significance of human gonadotrophin and prolactin binding sites in normal and neoplastic human ovarian tissue.

An immunoperoxidase technique has been utilised for the demonstration of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinising hormone (LH) and prolactin (PRL) binding sites in normal human ovaries and in a wide range of benign and malignant epithelial tumours of the ovary. The incidence of FSH, LH and PRL binding was, respectively, 32%, 41% and 39% in normal ovaries, 30%, 18.5% and 22.5% in benign epithelial tumours and 51%, 32% and 43% in malignant epithelial neoplasms. The incidence of FSH binding was significantly higher in malignant epithelial neoplasms than in either normal ovaries or benign epithelial tumours but otherwise no correlation was found between hormone binding capacity and the degree of malignancy of epithelial ovarian tumours, the histological type of the tumour, the degree of differentiation of the malignant epithelial tumours or the presence or absence of metastatic disease. Well differentiated malignant tumours did, however, tend to stain more strongly than did poorly differentiated neoplasms, thus suggesting that the number of binding sites per cell tends to decrease with decreasing degrees of differentiation.