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Classification of normal colorectal mucosa and adenocarcinoma by morphometry
Author(s) -
HAMILTON P.W.,
ALLEN D.C.,
WATT P.C.H.,
PATTERSON C.C.,
BIGGART J.D.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
histopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.626
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1365-2559
pISSN - 0309-0167
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2559.1987.tb01897.x
Subject(s) - adenocarcinoma , discriminant function analysis , linear discriminant analysis , pathology , biology , mathematics , medicine , statistics , cancer , genetics
Semi‐automatic image analysis was used to make a morphometrical assessment of 15 nuclear and cellular variables in normal ( n =20) and malignant ( n =30) colorectal epithelium. Principal components analysis on the matrix of correlations between variables identified four main sources of variation within the dataset. These were, in decreasing order of importance: (1) nuclear size, nuclear cytoplasmic ratio and nuclear position within the cell; (2) the variability of nuclear size; (3) nuclear elongation and polarity; (4) nuclear shape and its variation. Discriminant analysis was conducted between histologi‐cally normal mucosa ( n =10) and adenocarcinoma in ulcerative colitis ( n =20). Using stepwise variable selection, the mean nuclear cytoplasmic ratio (normal, mean 20.4 (s.d. ± 2.0); tumour, mean 39.7 (s.d. ± 7.0)) and the coefficient of variation of nucleus to cell apex distance (normal, mean 19.2 (s.d ± 7.5); tumour, mean 47.8 (s.d. ± 9.1)) were chosen as discriminating features. They were used to derive a discriminant function which gave perfect discriminating between the two groups. Scatter plots of these two variables confirmed complete separation of normal mucosa from adenocarcinoma and provided a simple method of applying the discriminant function. Discriminatory performance did not deteriorate when the function was applied to further normals ( n =10) and adenocarcinoma ( n =10). This study highlights the descriptive differences between normal and malignant colorectal epithelium and shows that case allocation may be made to these two lesion categories using a morphometrically‐derived classification rule.