Abstract
The effect of nuclear DNA content on nuclear atypia and clinicopathological factors such as histological type, stage, tumor size, node status, pleural invasion, pulmonary metastasis, and survival, in non-small cell lung carcinoma was studied by means of a newly developed color image analyzer system. Sixty-three cases were divided into 15 cases (23.8%) with DNA diploidy and 48 cases (76.2%) with DNA aneuploidy. We classified four groups based on the DNA histogram pattern; A-1 (diploid, 5 cases), A-2 (diploid with S+G 2/M increase, 10 cases), B-1 (aneuploid, 20 cases), and B-2 (aneuploid with S+G 2/M increase, 28 cases). Differences in the degree of nuclear atypia, such as size, anisokaryosis and roundness, were significant between types 1 and 2 (p<0.001-0.05). However, there was no significant difference between group A and B. Types 1 and 2 significantly correlated with tumor size, node status, and survival (p<0.05), but groups A and B did not correlated with clinicopathological factors. These results indicate that the DNA ploidy status of cancer cells in non-small cell lung carcinoma correlates with nuclear atypia, but not with biological aggressiveness.
