Ability of bivariate cytokeratin and deoxyribonucleic acid flow cytometry to determine the biologic aggressiveness of resectable non–small cell lung cancer

Abstract

In a bivariate analysis of cytokeratin and DNA flow cytometry in resectable non-small cell lung cancer, the S-phase fraction appeared to be correlated with the disease-free interval. However, DNA ploidy and S-phase fraction were not predictive of either recurrence or survival after operation. Thus DNA flow cytometry may be of limited use for the analysis of the biologic aggressiveness of lung cancer.

Flow Cytometric Measurement of Aneuploid DNA Content Correlates with High S-Phase Fraction and Poor Prognosis in Patients with Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

“…These results could suggest that the increasing proliferative activity of tumors is probably not the only factor related to a major risk of recurrence and metastasis in NSCLC patients. In line with our results, the significance of SPF as a reliable predictor of recurrence has been questioned despite its correlation with the tumor growth rate [26]. In addition, it has been also suggested that SPF is not directly associated with the ability of a tumor to metastasize [26].…”

“…Nevertheless, the aneuploidy was found to be associated with a poor overall survival of NSCLC patients, not depending on the histopathological subtype of tumor. It is known, aneuploidy has been usually related to an aggressive biological behavior of many malignant tumors [26] including lung cancers [12,21,23,25]. In previous reports, other authors have obtained significant differences dependent on ploidy in both overall survival and disease-free survival in NSCLC [12,23].…”

TORAKOCHIRURGIA DNA ploidy as an independent prognostic factor: 10-year results in a group of patients surgically treated for squamous cell lung cancer

“…Some researchers believe that aneuploidy contributes to the recurrence of neoplasia and shortens the survival period [3,4,9,23,24]. Others refute the prognostic significance of ploidy [25][26][27] or claim that its influence on the clinical course concerns only squamous cell carcinoma [28,29]. The differences of opinion on the prognostic significance of ploidy may have several underlying causes.…”

“…The differences of opinion on the prognostic significance of ploidy may have several underlying causes. Among them are the phenomenon of tumor heterogeneity, or the existence of diploid and aneuploid regions within a single tumor [23,30], poor quality of material sampled for the cytometric analysis, resulting from the presence of stroma cells and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes [25,31], and non-uniform criteria of ploidy assessment used by various researchers [32]. Additional peaks on the histogram curve are an unquestionable indication of aneuploidy, although its existence may also be concluded from single, yet deformed or abnormally located G0/G1 peaks, the high value of the coefficient of variation (CV), as well as a significant number of cells at S or G2M phase of the cell cycle [32].…”

Prognostic value of DNA ploidy: 5-year follow-up of patients with resectable squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lung

“…Some authors found that aneuploidy markedly contributed to earlier and more frequent cancer relapse and a shorter survival time [1,3,5,10,11]. However, other authors do not report any significance of ploidy on survival [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Others suggested that aneuploidy in this respect was only significant in squamous cell type of lung cancer [25,26].…”