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Clinical significance of abnormal nuclear DNA content in serous ovarian tumors
Author(s) -
Klemi Pekka J,
Joensuu Heikki,
Kiilholma Pentti,
Mäenpää Juhani
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0142(19881101)62:9<2005::aid-cncr2820620922>3.0.co;2-q
Subject(s) - serous fluid , aneuploidy , medicine , pathology , stage (stratigraphy) , nuclear dna , ovarian carcinoma , ovarian cancer , ovary , serous carcinoma , carcinoma , cancer , biology , paleontology , biochemistry , mitochondrial dna , chromosome , gene
The nuclear DNA content of 160 serous ovarian neoplasms was determined by flow cytometry from paraffin‐embedded tissue. Three (11%) of the 27 histologically benign, seven (16%) of the 43 borderline malignant, and 59 (66%) of the 90 malignant neoplasms were aneuploid ( P < 0.0001). None of the patients with an aneuploid benign or borderline malignant tumor died from cancer, but in carcinomas the DNA index (DI) was a more important prognostic factor in a multivariate analysis than age at diagnosis, stage, histologic grade or ploidy (diploid versus aneuploid). A DI of 1.3 was the most effective value hi predicting prognosis; patients with carcinoma with the DI more than 1.3 had inferior survival compared with those with the DI less than 1.3 ( P = 0.002). Carcinomas with the DI more than 13 were more common in patients older than 60 years at diagnosis ( P = 0.0002), and were associated with a low grade of differentiation (P = 0.008) but not with stage. It is concluded that DNA aneuploidy may occur in benign and borderline malignant serous ovarian tumors and that the DI is a highly valuable and objective prognostic parameter in serous ovarian carcinomas.