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A comparison between stereological estimates of mean nuclear volume and DNA flow cytometry in bladder tumours
Author(s) -
NIELSEN KARSTEN,
PETERSEN STEFFEN ELLEBÆK,
ØRNTOFT TORBEN
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1989.tb00503.x
Subject(s) - dna , staining , nuclear dna , urinary bladder , biology , h&e stain , pathology , flow cytometry , nuclear medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , urology , medicine , genetics , gene , mitochondrial dna
The correlation between stereological estimate of mean nuclear volume and DNA‐content was studied in 55 human urinary bladder tumours. The DNA‐content was determined by flow cytometry on isolated nuclei stained with ethidium bromide. Trout erythrocytes were used as a biological internal standard providing an accurate determination of the DNA‐histogram. An unbiased estimate of the mean nuclear volume (V̄ v ) was obtained after standard formaline fixation, paraffin‐embedding, sectioning and hematoxylin‐eosin staining using the equation . Here I 0 is the length of an intercept measured in a random direction through a test point, which hit a nucleus. A highly significant correlation was found between V̄ v and mean DNA‐content of nuclei (2p = 0.0004). A highly significant correlation was also found between V̄ v and the highest DNA‐content present in tumours having cell populations with different DNA content (2p = 0.0016). The mean nuclear volume and the DNA‐content also correlated well with the pathologic grade. Although significant the correlations were far from perfect, which indicates that DNA content and mean nuclear volume may provide partly independent biological information. The methods provide objective, unbiased and reproducible data which may improve the possibility of grading and predicting the disease course of human urinary bladder tumours.