title: Karyometry of nuclear phenotypes in cutaneous squamous cell cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To establish the karyometric characteristics of the two main nuclear phenotypes in cutaneous squamous cell cancer (cSCC) lesions.
  
  
  METHODS
  The clinical materials comprised 75 cases of cSCC, 38 with aggressive lesions and 37 with nonaggressive lesions. High-resolution images of 100 nuclei per case were recorded. Data were partitioned into four subgroups covering the range of lesion progression. Four discriminant functions were derived to distinguish aggressive from nonaggressive lesions. The most typical nuclei from the phenotype predominant in aggressive lesions and nonaggressive lesions were separated out by thresholding on the discriminant function score axes. For these homogeneous sets of nuclei the karyometric features were computed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The nuclear populations in cSCC lesions are a very heterogeneous set. There are two axes of dispersion, along the line of lesion progression and between aggressive and nonaggressive lesions. The analysis faces the difficulty that lesions from both diagnostic categories contain nuclei of the same two phenotypes with the difference between categories consisting only of differences in proportion of the two phenotypes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The nuclei of the aggressive phenotype I and nonaggressive phenotype II have substantially different chromatin patterns and can be distinguished with > 90% correct recognition rate.
authors.affiliation: College of Optical Sciences, Arizona Cancer Center, University of Arizona, 1515 North Campbell Avenue, P.O. Box 245024, Tucson, Arizona 85724-5024, USA.
authors.forename: Peter H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Bartels
authors.forename: Hubert G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Bartels
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Alberts
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yozwiak
authors.forename: Anil R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Prasad
authors.forename: Evan S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Glazer
authors.forename: Robert S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Krouse
mesh_terms: D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D007620:Karyometry; D010641:Phenotype; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*