ImmunoFISH is a reliable technique for the assessment of 1p and 19q status in oligodendrogliomas.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a new ImmunoFISH technique for the study of oligodendrogliomas by combining a standard immunohistochemical stain using MIB-1 antibody with a standard FISH technique using commercial 1p36 and 19q13 chromosomal probes. METHODS: Validation was performed by two observers on a series of 36 pre-selected oligodendrogliomas and compared to the results previously determined by FISH alone. RESULTS: The ImFISH technique is easy to perform and to analyze and is no more time-consuming than the usual FISH technique. Our results show that the inter-observer reliability of ImFISH is high (κ = 0.86 and 0.95 respectively for 1p and 19q). Compared to FISH, the ImFISH exhibits a very high sensitivity (∼100%) and specificity (∼90%) for 1p and/or 19q deleted cases. The sensitivity is high for normal cases (∼85%) and imbalanced cases (∼90%) with a specificity ranging between 50 and 85%. Finally, there were no significant differences between FISH and ImFISH results calculated on 60, 40 or 20 cells. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates the reliability of the ImFISH technique in oligodendrogliomas and emphasizes its advantage in poorly cellular tumoral specimen.