Prognostic importance of the DNA ploidy pattern in malignant mesothelioma of the pleura.
Malignant mesotheliomas often raise a difficult diagnostic problem: once the diagnosis is made, the possibilities of predicting the biologic activity and prognosis of the tumor are limited. DNA ploidy patterns have been used as a prognostic instrument for other tumors, and this pattern was therefore studied in 37 cases of verified mesothelioma. The measurements were made on Feulgen-stained smears from pleural effusions using a Leica Miamed computer microscope. When a highly aneuploid tumor was defined as a condition with greater than 5% of the cells within defined intervals outside the ranges of the stem-line and the peaks representing polyploidization thereof, a near-diploid/polyploid pattern was obtained in 41% of the cases, while the remaining 59% were classified as highly aneuploid. The prognosis was significantly better among the near-diploid/polyploid cases. This estimate of the outcome could not be improved by using alternative algorithms for high-grade aneuploidy.
Dejmek
A
A
Department of Pathology II, Karolinska Institute, Huddinge University Hospital, Sweden.
Strömberg
C
C
Wikström
B
B
Hjerpe
A
A
D000782:Aneuploidy; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D004171:Diploidy; D006801:Humans; D008654:Mesothelioma / Q000473:pathology*; D010996:Pleural Effusion / Q000473:pathology; D010997:Pleural Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D011003:Ploidies; D011123:Polyploidy; D011379:Prognosis
D004273:DNA, Neoplasm