Background: While the differentiation of prostatic adenocarcinoma and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is not often a difficult task, sometimes it is not the case even for the experienced pathologists. In this study the efficacy of AgNOR staining technique for differentiating between the prostatic adenocarcinoma and BPH were evaluated.

Materials & Methods: Using a descriptive study 15 prostatic adenocarcinoma samples (without spot to histologic grade) and 15 BPH samples were selected and stained with AgNOR method. Specimens were taken from paraffin block in Pathology laboratory archive.

Results: The average AgNOR points in BPH and prostatic adenocarcinoma were1.39 and 2.48 per cell, respectively. In BPH there was one or two points of AgNOR with specific margin but in prostatic adenocarcinoma numerous arranged AgNOR points were seen. While the number of cells in BPH with three or more AgNOR points were 4.7, in prostatic adenocarcinoma it was 41.47.

Conclusion: AgNOR is a useful method to differentiate between benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostatic adenocarcinoma.