Significance of mucin stain in differentiating benign and malignant lesions of prostate

In an attempt to assess the significance of mucin stains in benign and malignant lesions of prostate, 200 prostatic biopsies in the department of Pathology, Pt. B.D. Sharma PGIMS, Rohtak were studied. All the biopsies were subjected to PAS and alcian blue staining along with H&E stain. Neutral mucin (PAS positive) was more frequently observed in benign prostatic lesions (93.3%) as compared to carcinoma (36%) while acid mucin (AB positive) was found more in carcinoma prostate (68%) as compared to benign prostatic lesions (16%). The positivity for acid mucin was more in well differentiating tumour decreasing significantly in high grade malignancies. With both types of mucin, luminal positivity was slightly more as compared to cytoplasmic positivity.