title: Prognostic assessment of superficial squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus using karyometric analysis and nucleolar organizer regions.
abstract: To investigate prognostic values for squamous cell carcinoma, we measured nuclear area (NA), nuclear shape factor (NSF), DNA content and mean number of nucleolar organizer regions (NOR), using formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections from 39 patients with superficial squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus. NA and DNA content were significantly higher in patients with lymph node metastasis than in those without metastasis. NA and the NOR number were also significantly higher in patients with recurrence than in those surviving for more than 3 years without recurrence. To determine the optimal combination of these parameters for prognostic assessment, we used a stepwise discriminant analysis to obtain two linear discriminant functions. One (f = 0.331 x NA + 6.64 x NSF + 9.85) gave an accuracy of 87.2% in predicting lymph node metastasis, and the other (f = -0.071 x NA - 2.34 x NOR + 13.0) yielded an overall accuracy of 88.9% in classifying patients into two groups with a better and worse prognosis. These results suggest that karyometric analysis and determination of the NOR number are useful for the prediction of disease outcome in patients with superficial squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Iwate Medical University School of Medicine, Morioka, Japan.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Maesawa
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Masuda
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tamura
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Satodate
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ishida
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saito
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007620:Karyometry; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000453:epidemiology; D009697:Nucleolus Organizer Region / Q000473:pathology; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate