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Pan-Trk immunohistochemistry reliably identifies ETV6-NTRK3 fusion in secretory carcinoma of the salivary gland

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Abstract

Secretory carcinoma of the salivary gland is a newly recognized entity that morphologically resembles breast secretory carcinoma and has a characteristic t(12;15)(p13;q25) ETV6-NTRK3 translocation. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analyses can detect the ETV6-NTRK3 fusion; however, both tests are expensive and not widely available. In this study, we aimed to determine whether pan-Trk immunohistochemistry (IHC) could detect ETV6-NTRK3 fusions as reliably as RT-PCR and FISH. We performed pan-Trk IHC in 70 salivary gland cancer samples, including secretory carcinomas, acinic cell carcinomas, and hybrid carcinomas. Nineteen tumors exhibited positive pan-Trk staining, including 16 secretory carcinomas, 2 hybrid carcinomas with a secretory carcinoma component, and 1 acinic cell carcinoma. Pan-Trk IHC staining was localized in the nucleus in 16 (84.2%) cases and in the cytoplasm and/or membrane in 3 (15.8%) cases. RT-PCR analysis for the ETV6-NTRK3 transcript was conducted in 45 samples; the fusion transcript was present in 11 of 12 secretory carcinomas and absent in 32 acinic cell carcinomas and 1 mucoepidermoid carcinoma. Pan-Trk IHC was positive in 10 of 11 salivary tumors that were positive for ETV6-NTRK3 by RT-PCR and negative in all 34 tumors that were negative for the fusion by RT-PCR. Therefore, in comparison with RT-PCR, pan-Trk IHC had a sensitivity of 90.9% and specificity of 100%. In conclusion, our data showed that pan-Trk IHC is a reasonable screening test for diagnosing secretory carcinoma of the salivary gland.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Amy L. Ninetto from the Department of Scientific Publications at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for editing the manuscript.

Funding

The study is supported in part by the Head and Neck SPORE Program Grant P50CA097007, The Kenneth D. Muller Professorship (Adel El-Naggar, MD, PhD).

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Author notes

  1. Renata Ferrarotto and Li Liang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Division of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Diana Bell, Li Liang, Jie Li, Russell Broaddus & Adel K. El-Naggar

  2. Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Renata Ferrarotto

  3. Department of Head and Neck Surgery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Ryan P. Goepfert & Randal S. Weber

  4. Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Jing Ning

Authors
  1. Diana Bell
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  2. Renata Ferrarotto
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  3. Li Liang
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  4. Ryan P. Goepfert
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  5. Jie Li
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  6. Jing Ning
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  7. Russell Broaddus
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  8. Randal S. Weber
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  9. Adel K. El-Naggar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Diana Bell.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with ethical standards of the institutional committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Bell, D., Ferrarotto, R., Liang, L. et al. Pan-Trk immunohistochemistry reliably identifies ETV6-NTRK3 fusion in secretory carcinoma of the salivary gland. Virchows Arch 476, 295–305 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-019-02640-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-019-02640-7

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