Abstract
The nuclear DNA of mammary tumor cells in imprint smears taken from 110 patients were quantitatively measured by cytophotometry. The smears stained by the Papanicolaou's method were destained and were re-stained by the Feulgen's method for this study. The diagnosis of all surgical specimens used in this study was verified by histological examination. Differential diagnosis of malignant mammary lesions from benign ones was tried by the cytophotometry and the results were followed.
(1) The diagnosis of the DNA histogram was highly accurate. The positive rate was 80.0% and the false negative rate was 3.1% in the malignant lesions. The negative rate was 77.8% and the false positive rata was 2.2% in benign lesions.
(2) The positive rate was 55.6%, the rate of suspected diagnosis was 38.9% and the false negative rate was 5.5% in the T1 mammary lesions. The positive rate was 89.4%, the rate of suspected diagnosis was 8.5% and the false negative rate was 2.1% in the T2, T3 and T4 lesions. The quantitative analysis by the DNA histogram of the T1 lesions revealed boundary findings to the benign lesions, when compared with those of the T2, T3, and T4 lesions.
(3) The positive rate was 60.0% in papillotubular carcinoma, 81.3% in medullary tubular carcinoma and 86.2% in scirrhous carcinoma. The diagnostic accuracy by the quantitative method was dependent on the histological types.
(4) The positive rate was 45.4% in well differentiated adenocarcinoma, 76.9% in moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma and 90.2% in poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. There was a close relationship between the diagnostic accuracy by the cytophotometry and the degree of differentiation of the malignant mammary lesions.
