Ploidy and proliferative activity of human brain tumors. A flow cytofluorometric study.
Ploidy and proliferative characteristics were estimated by flow cytometry of the nuclear DNA content of 92 human brain tumors. Samples were frozen at -20 degrees C immediately after surgery and single cell suspensions were obtained with a mechanical dissociation technique. Propidium iodide was employed for nuclear DNA staining. Human normal brain tissue was used as internal diploid reference standard. 86% of benign tumors had unimodal DNA distribution with a DNA index (DNA I = modal channel of the G0/1 peak of the studied population/modal channel of the G0/1 peak of the normal brain) usually within the diploid or near-diploid range. 14.0% had aneuploidy, with an additional cell peak having a median DNA I of 1.60. Among malignant tumors, these figures were 61.2 and 38.8% (p less than 0.001). The percentage of S phase cells was higher in malignant (median = 3.6) than in benign tumors (median = 2.0, p less than 0.01), without correlation to histological tumor subtype. Flow cytometry appears to be a useful method for evaluating differences in DNA distribution in tumors of the central nervous system.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000782:Aneuploidy; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000032:analysis; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D005910:Glioma / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011003:Ploidies; D011379:Prognosis; D011419:Propidium; D013194:Staining and Labeling
D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D011419:Propidium