Abstract
Cytologic findings such as nuclear size, nucleolar features and nuclear DNA content were analized in imprint smears taken from 8 intracystic papillary carcinomas and 16 intraductal papillomas of the human breast.
The mean size of the longer axis of nuclei was 9.86, um in 8 papillary carcinomas and 9.50 pm in 16 papillomas. We could not find a significant difference in nuclear size between the carcinomas and the papillomas. Larger nuclei than 15μm in axis were detected in 6 cases (75.0%) of the carcinomas and 3 cases (18.8%) of the papillomas.
The detection rates of cells with larger nucleoli than 2.5μm in diameter and cells with more nucleoli than 5 were 1.86 % and 1.18% in the malignant cells respectively, though 0.41% and 0.10% in the papilloma cells.
DNA histograms of the papillomas were classified into 5 DNA diploid and 11 hyperdiploid tumors with a few cells with DNA content up to hexaploid. In contrast, the papillary carcinomas showed broad DNA distribution between diploid and octaploid with hyperdiploid mode and they had many cells (11.38%, mean) with DNA content over tetraploid as compared with benign cases (3.34%, mean).
