Nucleolar organizer regions in meningiomas

Paraffin sections of 305 meningeal tumours were analysed for the presence of nucleolar organizer region (Ag-NOR) in the neoplastic cells, using a one step silver-colloidal staining method. The mean (+/- SEM) Ag-NOR counts were 2.73 +/- 0.21 for atypical and 2.91 +/- 0.18 for papillary variants of meningioma. In meningotheliomatous and transitional variants of meningioma, the mean Ag-NOR counts were 1.41 +/- 0.34 and 1.38 +/- 0.31, respectively. The recurrence rates were significantly higher in atypical meningiomas than in other histopathological variants (p < 0.05). Differences in the mean Ag-NOR numbers between meningothelial and transitional variants in their primary and recurrent tumours were not significantly different (p > 0.05). The results of this study indicates that estimation of Ag-NORs can be applied in predicting the aggressive clinical behaviour of primary meningeal tumours.