Nuclear DNA profiles in primary melanomas and their metastases.
DNA-aneuploid primary melanomas are said to show a greater propensity to metastasize than those without an aneuploid profile. A higher aneuploid rate has also been reported in metastatic melanomas than in primary lesions. The ploidy profile was determined of 26 primary melanomas and their first subsequent secondaries on Feulgen-stained sections from routinely processed material using a computerized video image-analysis system. In 18 of 26 cases, both primary and secondary tumor showed similar corresponding DNA patterns. These were aneuploid in 13 of 18 of the cases. A hyperdiploid pattern was present in one case in both the primary and its metastasis, and a diploid pattern was seen in four cases. There were only eight cases in which a disparity between the nuclear ploidy profile in the primary and secondary tumor was evident. Although the results suggest that ploidy studies are not useful for predicting the metastatic potential of a primary melanoma, the maintenance of similar DNA profiles in the metastases in most of these cases was interesting in regard to tumor biology.
Rode
J
J
Department of Pathology, Saint Vincents Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Williams
R A
RA
Charlton
I G
IG
Dhillon
A P
AP
Moss
E
E
D000782:Aneuploidy; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D008545:Melanoma / Q000235:genetics* / Q000556:secondary; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000235:genetics; D011003:Ploidies
D004273:DNA, Neoplasm