Determination of growth fraction and cell density to evaluate the potential growth of human oligodendroglial and astrocytic tumours.
The object of this work was


OBJECTIVE
to develop a methodology that enables net tumour growth, a balance between actual tumour growth and tumour cell loss, to be approximately evaluated.


METHODS
The methodology proposed relies on detecting the growth fraction immunohistochemically by means of MIB-1 antibody labelling combined with cell density determination, carried out on 5-microm-thick Feulgen-stained histological sections with computer-assisted microscopy. The series investigated included 25 oligodendrogliomas (OLG-II), 9 anaplastic oligodendrogliomas (OLG-III). 13 astrocytomas (AST), 14 anaplastic astrocytomas (ANA) and 8 mixed oligoastrocytomas (OLG-AST).


RESULTS
The results show that the biological characteristics of some cases were in total accordance with their histopathological diagnoses. This was the case for the "weakly proliferating weakly dense" OLG-II and AST-II tumours, and for the "highly proliferating highly dense" OLG-III and AST-III ones. In contrast, the biological characteristics of some cases seemed to contradict the histopathological case labels. This was the case for the "highly proliferating highly dense" OLG-II and AST-II tumours, the biological aggressiveness of which would be undervalued on the basis of the morphology-based grading system alone, and also for the "weakly proliferating weakly dense" OLG-III and AST-III tumours, the aggressiveness of which would be overvalued.


CONCLUSIONS
Combining the determinations of the MIB-1 and the cell density variables appears to be satisfactory in terms of the cell kinetic characterization of glial tumours as a complement to the prognostic information given by a morphology-based grading system alone.
Gordower
L
L
Laboratory of Histology, Faculty of Medicine, Free University of Brussels (ULB), Belgium.
Decaestecker
C
C
Lopes
M B
MB
Camby
I
I
Nagy
N
N
François
C
C
Cras
P
P
Martin
J J
JJ
Brotchi
J
J
Kiss
R
R
Salmon
I
I
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000473:pathology*; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D002452:Cell Count / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009837:Oligodendroglioma / Q000473:pathology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests