Cervical lesion would highly express which biomarker?

• A. pancytokeratin
• B. Napsin A
• C. CK20
• D. GATA3

Answer: (A)

The key idea is recognizing tissue origin with immunohistochemical markers. Cervical lesions arise from epithelial cells, and cytokeratins are the intermediate filaments found in most epithelial tissues. Pancytokeratin antibodies detect a broad range of cytokeratins, so they reliably stain epithelial-derived tumors, making it the most consistent marker for a cervical lesion. The other markers are more specialized: Napsin A is a marker linked to lung-type adenocarcinomas and some renal/thyroid tumors; CK20 is typical for lower GI tract and Merkel cell carcinomas; GATA3 is common in breast and urothelial carcinomas. These are less expected to be highly expressed in cervical epithelium, so they would not be as robust an indicator as pancytokeratin.