[Flow cytometry (FCM) in DNA content assay of normal and malignant epithelial cells of human uterine cervix and the prognostic significance of DNA content--II. Results]

Abstract

Previous studies on cervical cancer using microspectrophotometric technique to measure DNA content of the cancer cells had indicated that the tumor ploidy is an important prognostic variable and that tumors with a DNA index less than 1.55 have a worse prognosis than those with higher DNA index. But there are conflicting results in the other studies using flow cytometer. In this paper, a retrospective analysis on the tumor ploidy of paraffin-embedded tissues using flow cytometer before treatment in 88 patients with cervical cancer was carried out. The results indicate that tumors with a DNA index over 1.5 have a higher recurrence rate and lower survival rate in stage I patients as compared with tumors having a lower DNA index (P less than 0.05). No correlation is found between clinical stage, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, histopathology and DNA index. However, prognosis is related to many factors, such as tumor differentiation, treatment modality etc., a multiple regression analysis of the different prognostic variables and further studies in this aspect are necessary.