The extent of cell proliferation is an important biological aspect of a tumor cell population that can affect clinical outcome. Besides other well established clinical and histopathological prognostic criteria, cell kinetic data may therefore be of significant prognostic value. This study evaluated the proliferative activity of various grades of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, by analyzing the expression of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). PCNA is a 36 kD nuclear protein associated with the cell cycle and is directly involved in DNA synthesis during cell proliferation. Our study revealed a good correlation (p=0.000) between PCNA expression and tumor grade. The highest levels of PCNA expression (mean=43%) were seen in the high grade lesions and the lowest (mean=19%) in low grade lesions. These results suggest that PCNA immunostaining may be used to evaluate proliferative index in various grades of NHL, which in turn could be used to monitor response to treatment.

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