During the past three decades, IHC has evolved from a highly specialized testing modality available in a few research centers to a diagnostic mainstay performed by automated laboratories in community hospitals. This powerful adjunctive test has markedly increased diagnostic accuracy in surgical pathology by supplementing routine morphological data with molecular clues about the lineage of cells and tissues. Although in many instances IHC serves to confirm diagnostic impressions based on morphology, it may be a critical factor in difficult clinical scenarios such as the diagnosis of spindle cell and soft tissue neoplasms or poorly differentiated malignancies, and occasionally it can identify an occult primary tumor that has spawned metastatic disease.
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