Assessment of c-Kit immunohistochemical expression in cutaneous basal and squamous cell carcinomas

Abstract

Abstract Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) are the most prevalent cutaneous malignancies. C-Kit plays a role in tumor initiation, progress, recurrence, and metastasis. Several medicinal treatments target the c-Kit pathway. The aim of the study was to assess the expression of c-Kit in BCC and cSCC. Furthermore, the study aimed to correlate c-Kit expression with available pathological data of the tumor and clinical data of the patients. A total of 62 excision specimens from patients with BCC (n =  41) and cSCC (n =  21) were histopathologically and immunohistochemically evaluated using anti-c-Kit, a rabbit monoclonal antibody clone IHC526. More than half of BCC cases (63.4%) showed positive c-Kit expression. C-Kit expression was significantly correlated with age (p-value = 0.011). The intensity of positive c-Kit staining was statistically related to tumor size (p-value = 0.028). All cSCC cases (100%) showed negative c-Kit expression. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.817 (95% confidence interval: 0.714–0.920, p-value < 0.001), with a sensitivity of 63.4% and a specificity of 100% in differentiating BCC from cSCC. Assessment of c-Kit expression may be beneficial in the diagnosis of BCC and in distinguishing it from cSCC. Its high specificity supports its diagnostic utility; however, due to its moderate sensitivity, it should be interpreted in conjunction with routine histopathological findings. While this study was a diagnostic, it suggested that c-Kit inhibitors may have therapeutic effects in BCC cases that express c-Kit; however, more research is needed to validate this.