Prognosis of the patients with cancer is largely determined by the specific histological diagnosis, tumor mass stage and host performance status. The management of neoplastic disease with the currently available treatment armamentarium may be
further
advanced if individual patient's risk factors could be defined. Some of he determinants of tumor response seem to be expressed at the cellular level in terms of degree of tumor cell differentiation, growth kinetics, and hormone receptor
expression,
which are not readily appreciated by descriptive morphology. Histopathological description is ssemiquantitative. not allowing a definite discrimination, cell by cell, of the malignant versus the normal state within the usually heterogenous cell
population constituting a tumor mass lesion. It is this cellular heterogeneity that, at least in part, many account for the diverse clinical course of comparably staged and treated patients. Quantitative cytology in the form of flow cytometry has
greatly advanced the objective elucidation of tumor cell heterogeneity by using probes that discriminate tumor and normla cells and assess differentiative as well as proliferative tumor cell properties.
So, the suthors measured the nuclear DNA content ad carried out analysis of ploidy in fresh malignant mucosa obtained from 60 gastric cancer patients which were collected at the depatment of surgery St. Mary's Hospital CUMC over the period from
1990 to
1991.
@ES The results were as follows:
@EN 1) There were 29 cases of aneuploidy(48.3%) and 31 cases of diploidy(51.7%).
2) Aneuploidy occurrence rates according to node metastasis were as follows: 29.16% in No, 50% in N1, 62.5% in N2 and 100% N3.
3) Stage distribution of the aneuploidy were 25% in stage Ia, 45.44% in Ib, 50% in II, 44.4% in IIIb and 77.7% in IV.
4) Aneuploidy occurrence rate in well differentiated type was 11.1%, moderately differentiated type 64.3%, poorly differentiated type 45.2% mucinous type 50.0% and signet ring cell type 14.3% respectively.
5) Overall 6 month cumulative survival rate was 96% and 1 and 2 year cumulative survival rate were 88.4% seperatey. But the difference between aneuploidy group and diploidy group was significant because duration of follow up was short.
The result of this study showed that diploidy occurrence rate decreased with more distant metastasis of the lymph node(P<0.05). Aneuploidy occurrence rate was higher than diploidy rate(P<0.05) in stage IV, N3 and N0. The difference between the
ploidy
pattern and cellula differentiation was insignificant.
|