The Advantages of Immunohistochemistry (IHC)

  Immunohistochemistry is a process that is used to detect antigens within tissues. It is a very sensitive and particular technique. For diagnosticians, is important for injuries and toxins, the reaction that occurs from them being in the same area. Tumors and infectious diseases are the main focus of IHC. Most routine histology tests cannot determine the origin of a tumor, but IHC has different tests that can help determine where a tumor came from. Metastasis is another instance where traditional histology may not detect the trajectory, but IHC can highlight either small groups of neoplastic cells, or even an individual cell, giving a much earlier detection in metastatic sites. This will increase the chance of survival with removal of the cancerous cells of the affected area, or modification of the treatment that was already instated. Also, IHC offers the chance for prognostic markers. There are differences is the structure and appearance of the cells, depending on the type of tumor or cancer. Recently it has been reported that the IHC detection of KIT proteins in mast cell tumors has had a large prognostic significance. The detection of antigens from an infectious agent has a large significance in etiology. The advantage of IHC over other techniques is that the detection of antigens can be linked with histopathologic changes and because of this, it can verify the significance of individual bacterial or vial isolates obtained by other methods. When testing using IHC methods, a colored reaction (with the use of a control) would help indicate the antigens or markers or the infectious disease or cancer. Whether the results were statistically significant would depend on the context of that particular case, which is the same for other diagnostic techniques. The same would be true for a negative result. In short, using Immunohistochemistry is invaluable when detecting antigens that can cause infectious diseases and helping to diagnose and get rid of cancer. Contact Creative Bioarray for your IHC needs today.