GATA3 Expression in Normal Skin and in Benign and Malignant Epidermal and Cutaneous Adnexal Neoplasms

Initial investigations reported GATA3 to be a sensitive and relatively specific marker for mammary and urothelial carcinomas. Recently, GATA3 expression has been described in several other epithelial tumors. However, there has been only limited investigation of GATA3 expression in cutaneous epithelial tumors. The objective of this study was to examine the immunohistochemical expression of GATA3 in a wide variety of cutaneous epithelial neoplasms. GATA3 expression was evaluated in 99 benign and 63 malignant cutaneous epithelial tumors. GATA3 was consistently and usually strongly expressed in clear cell acanthoma, trichofolliculoma, trichoepithelioma, trichilemmoma, sebaceous adenoma, sebaceoma, apocrine hidrocystoma, apocrine tubular papillary adenoma, hidradenoma papilliferum, and syringocystadenoma papilliferum. Hidradenomas exhibited variable positive staining. Most poromas, syringomas, chondroid syringomas, cylindromas, and spiradenomas were negative or only focally and weakly positive. Focal staining was present in all pilomatrixomas. Thirteen of 14 basal cell carcinomas, 21 of 24 squamous carcinomas, and all 6 sebaceous carcinomas exhibited positive staining. The 1 apocrine carcinoma, both mucinous carcinomas, and 2 of 3 microcystic adnexal carcinomas also exhibited positive staining, whereas the 1 eccrine porocarcinoma and the 1 adenoid cystic carcinoma were negative. One of 11 Merkel cell carcinomas exhibited focal weak staining. Our findings demonstrate that GATA3 is expressed in a wide variety of benign and malignant cutaneous epithelial neoplasms. In addition to carcinomas of breast and urothelial origin and other more recently described GATA3-positive tumors, the differential diagnosis of a metastatic tumor of unknown primary origin that expresses GATA3 should also include a carcinoma of cutaneous epithelial origin.