PAX8: A Highly Sensitive Marker for the Glands in Extragenital Endometriosis

Tomoko Arakawa, Arakawa T, Shinya Fukuda, Fukuda S, Tetsuya Hirata, Neriishi K, Kazuaki Neriishi, Wang Y, Yu Wang, Takeuchi A, Arisa Takeuchi, Ai Saeki, Saeki A, Miyuki Harada, Yasushi Hirota, Matsumoto T, Takashi Matsumoto, Kaori Koga, Osamu Wada‐Hiraike, Wada-Hiraike O, Osamu Wada-Hiraike, Masatoshi Kurihara, Kurihara M, Tomoyuki Fujii, Fujii T, Yutaka Osuga, Osuga Y
Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · 2019 · vol. 27(8) , pp. 193371911982809 · doi:10.1177/1933719119828095 · PMID:30764713 · W2912088611
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 16 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-16 ⓘ

This paper investigates PAX8 as a sensitive marker for identifying glandular endometriosis in extragenital locations.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

In cases of extragenital endometriosis or microscopic endometriosis lesions, pathological diagnosis can be challenging because endometriotic stroma and glands represent only a minor component of fibrotic endometriotic lesions. For better accuracy of diagnosis, the development of a sensitive and specific epithelial marker is beneficial. Previous studies showed that PAX8 is a highly sensitive and specific marker for primary and metastatic Mullerian epithelial tumors. Therefore, we sought to examine whether PAX8 is a highly sensitive marker for glands in extragenital endometriosis. Eight and 47 samples of ovarian endometrioma and extragenital endometriosis, respectively, were evaluated in this study. We calculated the percentage of samples positively immunostained for PAX8, CD10, estrogen receptor (ER), and progesterone receptor (PR). PAX8 was positive for endometriotic epithelial cells in 95.7% (45/47) of extragenital endometrioses and in 100% (8/8) of ovarian endometrioses. CD10 was positive for endometriotic stromal cells in 97.9% (46/47) of extragenital endometrioses. PAX8 was strongly positive for glands, even in a CD10-negative case. The expression of PAX8, CD10, and PR was not affected by preoperative hormonal therapy, and the positive rate of ER staining was significantly reduced by preoperative hormonal therapy. In conclusion, PAX8 is a highly sensitive epithelial marker for extragenital endometriosis. This specific expression was maintained under hormonal therapy. It is noteworthy that extragenital endometriosis maintains the expression of this lineage marker, although it occurs at various sites, and its cause and mechanism of development might be different. PAX8 nuclear expression can be useful in detecting extragenital endometriosis in clinical practice.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (24)

Cited by (16)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-08-05T06:13:34.187606+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:23:01.605684+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-06-02T02:00:03.124865+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK