Adenoid cystic carcinoma: A study of nucleolar organizer regions (AgNOR) counts and their relation to prognosis

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Abstract
We studied the AgNOR counts in 30 cases of adenoid cystic carcinoma from salivary glands (n = 18) and non‐salivary sites (n=12) in an attempt to correlate them with the evolution of the disease. AgNOR counts per nucleus varied between 1·96 and 6·12 (mean value 4·2 ± 0·99) as compared with 1·21 ± 1·4 in normal salivary tissue. There was no significant difference between cases that had an unfavourable clinical outcome (recurrence, metastases, and/or died of the disease) and cases without disease complications (4·31 vs. 4·03 AgNORs per nucleus). No difference was found between tumours located at salivary and non‐salivary sites or between major and minor salivary glands. AgNOR counts also did not correlate with the grade of differentiation of the neoplasms. In adenoid cystic carcinoma, AgNOR counts do not seem to be a prognostic indicator, in contrast to the usefulness of this method in other tumour types.