In colorectal carcinoma, it is well known that clinical and histopathological features are correlated to the patient's prognosis and that can be used as a guide to select the proper adjuvant therapy. Recently the measurement of cellular DNA
content
by
flowcytometry is emerging as a prognostic aid in a variety of human tumors.
From 84 surgically resectable colorectal carcinoma patients, fresh tumor specimens were obtained and DNA ploidy patterns were measured using flowcytometric methods. The DNA ploidy pattern. was classified into two DNA histogram types, normal
diploid
DNA
contents and abnormal non-diploid DNA contents, according to their DNA index distribution.
Results showed that diploids were found in 36 cases(42.9%), and non-diploid in 48 cases(57.1%). There was no non-diploid carcinoma in stage I, but the percentage of non-diploids were increased according to the tumor stage. They were 45.5%, 61.8%
and
85.7% in stage II, III and IV. Although the presence of non-diploid had an increasing tendency in positive lymph node metastasis, there was no significant difference in ploidy pattern between positive and negative lymph node metastasis According
to
distant metastasis, non-diploid showed a statistically significant increase in positive distant metastasis[12 cases(25%)] than diploid[2 cases(5.6%)]. In relation to histologic differentiation, comparing well or moderately differentiated
adenocarcinoma,
there was a increasing tendency of non-diploid in poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, mucinous adenocarcinoma or mixed adenosquamous carcinoma.
The DNA ploidy pattern had no significant correlation to age, sex, tumor location and tumor size.
These data suggest that flowcytometric analysis of DNA may be considered as a good method for determining the prognosis of colorectal carcinoma.
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