title: Cytonuclear morphometry in the assessment of dysplasia in colorectal adenomatous polyps. A pilot study.
abstract: In order to objectify the degree of dysplasia, results of nuclear and cellular morphometry were compared with assessed grades of dysplasia in 32 colorectal adenomatous polyps. Of these adenomas 8 showed mild, 17 moderate and 7 severe dysplasia (according to blind duplicate assessments by two pathologists). Using a microscope video-overlay interactive digitizing measurement system, 100 nuclei were measured in each specimen according to a strict measurement protocol. In a stepwise discriminant analysis the best discriminating features appeared to be mean stratification index, N/C ratio, mean contour ratio and mean form AR. Overall with these features 65.6% correct jackknifed classification of the 32 cases could be achieved. On the other hand, a clear three-group distinction could not be obtained, even with the best set of discriminating features. Similarly to gastric dysplasia, the morphometric features might be used to design a two-grade (low, high) rather than a three-grade system to assess the degree of dysplasia. These findings make clear that objectifying the degree of dysplasia in adenomatous polyps is possible by means of interactive morphometric analysis.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Pathology, Free University Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Meijer
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Baak
mesh_terms: D000236:Adenoma / Q000473:pathology*; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000473:pathology*; D003111:Colonic Polyps / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007417:Intestinal Polyps / Q000473:pathology*; D012004:Rectal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D014741:Video Recording