What does immunohistochemistry test?

Speaking of immunohistochemistry, many people probably don't know what it is, and even those who do immunohistochemistry don't quite know what kind of disease it is used to check for. Immunohistochemistry is a detection method mainly for female reproductive organs. When women have breast cancer and cervical cancer, immunohistochemistry examination is necessary. The following article will popularize the knowledge of immunohistochemistry.

Immunohistochemistry is the abbreviation of immunohistochemistry. Clinical immunohistochemistry examination refers to the application of the basic principle of immunology - the specific binding of antigens and antibodies, which uses chemical reactions to make the color developer of the labeled antibodies develop color, thereby determining the antigens (peptides and proteins) in tissue cells and locating, qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing them.

Immunohistochemistry examination in the diagnosis of breast cancer refers to the application of the above-mentioned immunohistochemistry technology to detect certain specific proteins in breast cancer tissue cells. The presence or absence of these proteins not only helps to determine the type of tumor, but also provides clinicians with important basis for molecular classification of breast cancer. These immunohistochemical test results reflect the biological characteristics of breast cancer and have very important predictive prognostic significance and therapeutic guidance value. The immunohistochemical expression may be different in each patient's tumor or even in different parts of the same tumor.

Therefore, the treatment plan for breast cancer is not the same for everyone. Immunohistochemistry examination is done to understand whether the tumor has certain characteristics so as to formulate a targeted treatment plan to achieve the best treatment effect. The results of immunohistochemistry examinations are also one of the important indicators for assessing the risk of recurrence and metastasis of patients. Clinicians use these results to comprehensively judge whether follow-up treatment after surgery requires chemotherapy, endocrine therapy or targeted therapy.

If chemotherapy is needed, then questions such as what medicine to use, how to use it, how many courses of treatment are needed, etc. All of them need to be determined by referring to various indicators including immunohistochemistry reports. Therefore, clinicians need to read the immunohistochemistry report before formulating a treatment plan.