Dermatopathologic advances in clinical research - The expression of antibody to CD34 in mucocutaneous lesions

The human progenitor cell antigen, CD34, is selectively Expressed in most hematopoietic colony-forming cells from normal human bone marrow, and in a significant proportion of acute leukemias. Within the dermis, CD34 is normally expressed by Endothelial cells, dendritic cells, and the spindle-shaped cells around adnexal structures. Benign and malignant vascular lesions, adnexal tumors differentiating toward the external root sheath (trichilemmomas and pilar tumors), specific benign soft tissue tumors (spindle cell lipoma and solitary fibrous tumors), and many of the gastrointestinal stromal tumors uniformly express CD34 antigen. CD34 Expression is also often present in benign tumors of neural origin; however, it is less consistently present in malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors.