The utility of ATF3 in distinguishing cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma among other cutaneous epithelial neoplasms
Journal of Cutaneous Pathology, 07/11/2012
Rose CL et al. – ATF3 expression is a surrogate of malignancy (or pre-malignancy) in keratinocytic epithelial proliferations and thus helps distinguish SCC from other cutaneous epithelial neoplasms.
Methods- Using immunohistochemistry, we characterized ATF3 expression in a series of 126 cutaneous epithelial proliferations, including SCC (n=27), basal cell carcinomas (BCC, n=59), seborrheic keratoses with atypia (SK, n=16), hyperplastic actinic keratoses (AK, n=12) and prurigo nodularis cases (PN, n=12).
- We showed strong, nuclear and/or nucleolar expression of ATF3 in a statistically significant number of cases of SCC compared to BCC, SK and PN.



